Effects of Proprioceptive Motion Feedback on Sighted and Non-Sighted Control of a Virtual Hand Prosthesis

Current prosthetic devices lack the ability to provide proprioceptive feedback, requiring the user to visually track the device in order to accomplish the tasks of daily living. This work seeks to quantify the effect of proprioceptive feedback on the accuracy, speed, and ease of use of a one-degree-of-freedom virtual prosthetic finger in both sighted and unsighted conditions. An experimental apparatus was designed to allow a user to perform a virtual grasping task with and without visual and proprioceptive feedback. Preliminary results suggest that proprioception improves movement accuracy and ease of system use in the absence of vision.