THE INFLUENCE OF GRAVITY (ARGuide)

THE INFLUENCE OF GRAVITY ON TARGET CUEING DURING VISUAL SEARCH USING AUGMENTED REALITY

Although most ground studies showed that an egocentric reference frame better supports spatial orientation, it is not proven it will be the same during weightlessness.

Although it might justify that visuomotor performance will be better supported by egocentric target cueing under altered gravity conditions, the fact that exocentric target cueing induces less head movements and called for least attentional and physiological workload could be the key factors for a more efficient task localization process. Moreover, weightlessness can induce spatial disorientation, which can be additionally influenced by the intrinsic and extrinsic spatial reference frames (Gurfinkel et al., 1993; Glasauer & Mittelstädt, 1997, 1998; Harm et al., 1998; Lipshits et al. 2005). We expect that during weightlessness the workload will be the key factor and thus we hypothesize that an exocentric target cueing will outperform egocentric target cueing.

To test this hypothesis, and find out which presentation scheme for target cueing (EGO, EXO, ED) contributes most to an efficient visual search, performance to a visuomotor task will be evaluated during parabolic flights in normogravity (1g), hypergravity (1.8g) and microgravity (0g). The visuomotor performance will be assessed by a multi-directional tapping task as defined by ISO9241-9, which requests for motor responses by aimed pointing movements. Besides analyzing the pointing performance, different workload indices will be additionally assessed to evaluate the effort spent on visuomotor coordination. The attentional workload will be evaluated by the performance of a secondary task (visual reaction-time task), which needs to be conducted in parallel to the visuomotor task. Furthermore, the workload will be also assessed subjectively by the NASA TLX rating scale and physiologically, by analyzing the heart rate variability (HRV).

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Healthy Volunteers
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: 3 levels of gravity (1G, 1.8G, 0G).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 18
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• France
  • Caen, France
    • Recruiting
    • CHU de Caen
    • Contact: Pierre Denise; Email: pierre.denise@unicaen.fr

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 67 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Healthy volunteers (men or women)
• Aged from 18 to 67
• Affiliated to a Social Security system and, for non-French resident, holding a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
• Who accepted to take part in the study
• Who have given their written stated consent
• Who has passed a medical examination similar to a standard aviation medical examination for private pilot aptitude (JAR FCL3 Class 2 medical examination). There will be no additional test performed for subject selection.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Person who took part in a previous biomedical research protocol, of which exclusion period is not terminated
• Pregnant women

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: parabolic flights; parabolic flights in normogravity (1g), hypergravity (1.8g) and microgravity (0g).	Other: 3 levels of gravity (1G, 1.8G, 0G).; healthy volunteers will experience 3 levels of gravity (1G, 1.8G, 0G).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
visuomotor performance	The visuomotor performance will be assessed by a multi-directional tapping task as defined by ISO9241-9, which requests for motor responses by aimed pointing movements.	baseline
common external display guidance method (ED)	common external display guidance method (ED) and exocentric "in-view" cueing (EXO), using common guidance method with an external display (ED) as a control condition	baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University Hospital, Caen

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): October 31, 2019
• Study Completion (Anticipated): December 31, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 27, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 27, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): October 2, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 2, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 27, 2017
• Last Verified: September 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 16-115

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No