Proprioception Variables as Determiners of Anticipatory Timing Behavior

Abstract

Anticipatory timing, where the human operator initiates an accurate response before the actual occurrence of the environmental event, is one of the most striking and least studied aspects of skilled motor performance. An experiment was performed on temporal and control system variables that could influence the timing of responses in a tracking task. Verification was sought for a proprioceptive trace hypothesis that holds the time-varying proprioceptive after-effects of movements to be the internal trace that persists in time and cues the occurrence of a future response. Ninety-six subjects participated. A 2×2×2 randomized factorial design used two values each of movement amplitude, spring loading, and signal duration as a means of manipulating proprioceptive stimuli and their time trace. Results supported the hypothesis. Signal duration and spring loading of the control induced significant effects for the number of beneficial anticipations, but movement amplitude had no significant effect. It was concluded that proprioception has a role in response timing, in addition to its traditional one of informative feedback.