Factors Affecting Sensory and Motor Learning

How participants perceive the position of their own hand in various contexts will be examined. This will include changing the visual display to suggest the hand is in a slightly different position, and asking participants to indicate where they think it is by pointing with their other hand.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Basic Science
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Attend to the targets; Behavioral: Explanatory diagram; Behavioral: Direct vision; Behavioral: No movement feedback; Behavioral: Movement feedback, target hand; Behavioral: Movement feedback, pointing hand

Detailed Description

Hand position can be estimated visually, from an image on the retina, and proprioceptively, from sensors in the joints, muscles, and skin. The brain is thought to weight and combine available sensory estimates to form an integrated multisensory estimate. Inherent in this process is the capacity to realign one or both sensory estimates when they become spatially mismatched, as when washing dishes with the hands immersed in water, which refracts light. It is generally assumed that if a person knows about the sensory mismatch somehow, the realignment will not occur. This assumption will be tested in two experiments by giving people this information in different ways. Expt. A: Conscious awareness of the mismatch will be presented in different ways, or absent. Expt. B: Movement error feedback will be presented in different ways, or absent.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 300
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Hannah J Block, PhD; Phone Number: 8128555390; Email: hjblock@indiana.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Indiana
    • Bloomington, Indiana, United States, 47403
      • Recruiting
      • Hannah Block
      • Contact: Hannah Block, PhD; Phone Number: 8128555390; Email: hjblock@indiana.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 45 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Between the ages of 18-45 years old
• Right-handed.
• Covid has been found to have neurological effects in some people, but mostly the effects on sensorimotor control and neurophysiology are unknown. So we will only include individuals who report being free of Covid symptoms in week preceding testing.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Past or present history of seizure, stroke, any brain or peripheral nerve disease, severe head trauma, or spinal cord surgery.
• Learning or attention conditions such as ADHD.
• Orthopedic or pain conditions, or a history of seriously injured bones, joints or muscles in either arm.
• Lack of normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

6

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Sham Comparator: Conscious awareness: No information; Told nothing about the visuo-proprioceptive mismatch. Hand remains hidden beneath mirror that shows visual display. (control)	Behavioral: Attend to the targets; Participants will not be told anything about the visuo-proprioceptive mismatch. Instead, they will be asked simply to attend to the target positions.
Experimental: Conscious awareness: Explanatory diagram; Told in advance about the visuo-proprioceptive mismatch, which will be explained with a diagram. Hand remains hidden.	Behavioral: Explanatory diagram; Participant is told there will be a mismatch between their target finger and the visual indicator of target finger position. They will be shown a diagram explaining this.
Experimental: Conscious awareness: Direct vision of hand; Foamboard under mirror removed, making the mirror see-through and the hand directly visible.	Behavioral: Direct vision; Foamboard under mirror removed, making the mirror see-through and the hand directly visible. Mismatch between target hand and visual indicator will be directly visible.
Sham Comparator: Movement feedback: No feedback; No movement feedback (control)	Behavioral: No movement feedback; The visual indicator of the target hand will be displaced, but there will be no cursor to indicate the pointing hand's position.
Experimental: Movement feedback: Target hand; Movement feedback about the target hand.	Behavioral: Movement feedback, target hand; After the participant points at each target, a cursor indicating final pointing position will be displayed briefly. The visual indicator of the target hand will be displaced.
Experimental: Movement feedback: Pointing hand; Movement feedback about the pointing hand.	Behavioral: Movement feedback, pointing hand; After the participant points at each target, a cursor indicating final pointing position will be displayed briefly. The visual indicator of the target hand will not change, but the cursor indicating pointing hand position will change.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Realignment	Measured by comparing where the subject points on a touchscreen when indicating perceived position of visual and proprioceptive targets early vs. late in the behavioral task.	1 day

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Visuo-proprioceptive weighting	The degree to which participant relies on vision vs. proprioception when both are available. Measured by comparing where the subject points on a touchscreen when indicating perceived position of visual vs. proprioceptive targets.	1 day
Target estimation variance	Variance with which participant estimate visual and proprioceptive target positions. Computed from where subjects point at targets on a touchscreen.	1 day.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Indiana University
• Collaborators: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Hannah J Block, Indiana University, Bloomington

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 29, 2022
• Primary Completion (Estimated): April 30, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): April 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 10, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 10, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): May 16, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): August 26, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 20, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 14804; R01NS112367-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: All IPD that underlie results published in peer-reviewed journals will be shared. Only de-identified data will be shared.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: The data will become available when group results are published in peer-reviewed journals.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Data will be available on www.osf.io for anyone who wishes to download it. The relevant osf registry will be cited in the peer-reviewed publication so that interested readers can find it.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: ANALYTIC_CODE

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