LE3 .A278 2023

2023

Blustein, Daniel

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

Users of upper limb prostheses face a challenge when attempting to grasp fragile objects due to an impairment of naturalistic sensory feedback regarding grip strength. Augmented Reality (AR) has shown promise as a candidate in solving this issue. The present study introduced a novel AR application for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and tested it using an upper limb prosthesis simulator. The AR system presented a colour overlay on top of a user’s prosthetic hand that changes based on grip strength. In an experimental design, a mechanical egg grasp-and-hold task was used to assess motor learning and performance, which was compared to performance when no additional feedback was provided via a two-way ANOVA test, using presence/absence of AR feedback and training block number as independent variables, and number of broken/dropped eggs as the dependent variable. We observed no statistically significant difference in motor learning or performance. Such results call for improvements to the developed application, as well as changes to the provided task to probe more subtle aspects of motor abilities.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:4007