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The Impact of Limited Previous Motor Experience on Action Possibility Judgments in People with Spinal Muscle Atrophy

Authors :
Sarvenaz Heirani Moghaddam
Dilara Sen
Megan Carson
Robert Mackowiak
Rachel Markley
Gerome Aleandro Manson
Source :
Brain Sciences, Vol 13, Iss 9, p 1256 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2023.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that people with limited motor capabilities may rely on previous motor experience when making action possibility judgments for others. In the present study, we examined if having limited previous motor experience, as a consequence of spinal muscle atrophy (SMA), alters action possibility judgments. Participants with SMA and neurologically healthy (NH) sex- and age-matched controls performed a perceptual-motor judgment task using the Fitts’s law paradigm. Participants observed apparent motion videos of reciprocal aiming movements with varying levels of difficulty. For each movement, participants predicted the shortest movement time (MT) at which a neurologically healthy young adult could accurately perform the task. Participants with SMA predicted significantly longer MTs compared to controls; however, the predicted MTs of both SMA and NH participants exhibited a Fitts’s law relationship (i.e., the predicted MTs significantly increased as movement difficulty increased). Overall, these results provide evidence that participants with SMA who have limited, or no motor experience may make more conservative action possibility judgments for others. Critically, our finding that the pattern of action possibility judgments was not different between SMA and NH groups suggests that limited previous motor experience may not completely impair action possibility judgments.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20763425
Volume :
13
Issue :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Brain Sciences
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.5af3b106f0b42f9900565ec901fb234
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13091256