Citation

Bock O, Arnold KE, Cheung BS. Aviat. Space Environ. Med. 1996; 67(2): 133-138.

Affiliation

Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science, North York, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Aerospace Medical Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8834938

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Literature proposes three hypotheses for impaired movement execution in hyper-G. The present study attempted to discriminate between these hypotheses by comparing kinematic characteristics and final accuracy of pointing movements in different gravity levels. METHOD: Subjects pointed without seeing their hand at targets presented before, during and after exposure to hyper-G. RESULTS: After factoring out movement amplitude, peak vertical velocity and the skewness of velocity profiles tended to increase, while movement duration tended to decrease with increasing G-level. Further, final response position was slightly less modulated by target position in hyper-G than in normal-G. CONCLUSION: Although not all findings reached statistical significance, the observed pattern of results corroborates the hypothesis (2) that the motor system re-interprets hyper-G as increased arm weight.

Language: en