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This study focusses on the mental rotation of real and prosthetic hands within a laterality judgement task. When such tasks contain human hands they are believed to invoke motor imagery based mental rotation. This can be detected through a resulting biomechanical constraint effect; the limited range of movement available to human hands is reflected in task performance with medial hand rotation taking longer than lateral rotation (Zapparoli et al., 2016). When similar tasks use inanimate stimuli, motor imagery is not induced, and a visual rotation strategy is used (Zacks, 2008). This experiment partially replicates and builds upon a final year undergraduate project at the University of Manchester in 2021 examining the processing of prosthetic hands (Duncan-Cross, 2021). As prosthetic hands are known to elicit eeriness in some observers (Poliakoff et al., 2018), in line with Mori’s theory of the Uncanny Valley (Mori et al., 2012), it is possible that their eeriness may also be responsible for changes in their processing. Research question 1: Is motor imagery used to process artificial hands? The previous study found that real, realistic, and mechanical hands all produced a biomechanical constraints effect, suggesting that motor imagery is used across hand types. Research question 2: Are artificial hands processed differently to real hands in the hand laterality task? The previous study found that mechanical and realistic prosthetic hands produced lower slope values than real hands, suggesting differences in processing. For all hand types, palms of hands produced slower reaction times and lower slopes. Duncan-Cross, I. (2021). What can mental rotation tell us about the uncanny valley for prosthetic hands? Unpublished final year undergraduate study. Mori, M., Mac Dorman, K. F., & Kageki, N. N. (2012). The uncanny valley [Bukimi no tani]. IEEE Robotics and Automation, 19(2), 98-100. DOI: 10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811 Poliakoff, E., O’Kane, S., Carefoot, O., Kyberd, P., & Gowen, E. (2018). Investigating the uncanny valley for prosthetic hands. Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 42(1), 21-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309364617744083 Zacks, J. M. (2008). Neuroimaging studies of mental rotation: a meta-analysis and review. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 20(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20013 Zapparoli, L., Saetta, G., De Santis, C., Gandola, M., Zerbi, A., Banfi, G., & Paulesu, E. (2016). When I am (almost) 64: The effect of normal ageing on implicit motor imagery in young elderlies. Behavioural brain research, 303, 137-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2016.01.058 |
