Authors: Lindsey E Fraser Laurence R Harris
Publish Date: 2016/08/17
Volume: 234, Issue: 12, Pages: 3565-3574
Abstract
In the absence of visual feedback the perceived position of the hands is systematically biased towards the plausible manual task space Here we tested whether perceived orientation of the finger is similarly misperceived in righthanded individuals Participants’ index fingers were passively rotated about the middle joint to a range of test angles either in the frontoparallel plane Experiment 1 or the horizontal plane Experiment 2 they reported perceived orientation of the finger by rotating a visual line presented on a screen optically superimposed on the location of their unseen finger Perceived finger orientations were biased towards positions that varied across hands and planes Both hands were biased towards 10° inward in the frontoparallel plane and in the horizontal plane the left hand was biased towards 25° inward whereas the right hand was biased towards 2° inwards In a third experiment participants reported finger orientation with respect to nonvisual targets gravitational vertical or straight ahead Biases in perceived finger orientation to nonvisual targets were similar to those found in the visual line task The asymmetrical nature of biases across hands and planes reflects the typical orientation of the hands while working and supports the theory of a functional rather than anatomical representation of the fingers and hands in space
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