PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Understanding augmented multisensory perception and goaldirected behavior is key to successful human-machine interaction and technology-assisted learning. For visuomotor learning, delays between one’s action and sensory feedback on the outcome are known to affect performance. Accordingly, system latency is a serious issue for technical applications with high demands on motor control. Although users can sometimes adapt to visual feedback delays, only a few studies in this field considered complex motor tasks and systematically compared the impact of multisensory feedback delays on fine-motor skills during human-machine interaction. The present study examines the impact of (1) visual and/or auditory feedback delays and, concomitant with this, (2) the temporal congruency of visuo-auditory feedback on the performance and the movement execution in a complex visually coordinated hand-controlled task. Participants (n = 36) played the Wire Loop Game, where a loop has to be moved quickly along a wire without touching it. Resembling standard telemanipulators, the game and participants’ hand movements were not directly viewed but shown on a display. In addition, concurrent auditory feedback on the movement accuracy (i.e. buzz) was provided. We implemented delays of 0 ms and 200 ms in the visual and/or auditory feedback, respectively. Participants’ performance in the game (speed, accuracy) and the movement execution (kinematic of the hand trajectories) were assessed. Particularly visual feedback delays, as well as incongruent feedback (e.g., visual but no auditory delay), was assumed to affect participants’ motor performance. Findings will be used to formulate requirements on the speed and congruency of multisensory feedback during human machine interaction.