Error Sonification of a Complex Motor Task

Peter Wolf, Roland Sigrist, Georg Rauter and Robert Riener

Sensory Motor Systems Lab, ETH Zurich & Spinal Cord Injury Center, University Hospital Balgrist, Zurich, Switzerland
E-mail: peter.wolf@mavt.ethz.ch, roland.sigrist@mavt.ethz.ch, georg.rauter@mavt.ethz.ch, robert.riener@mavt.ethz.ch

Abstract

Visual information is mainly used to master complex motor tasks. Thus, additional information providing augmented feedback should be displayed in other modalities than vision, e.g. hearing. The present work evaluated the potential of error sonification to enhance learning of a rowing-type motor task. In contrast to a control group receiving self-controlled terminal feedback, the experimental group could not significantly reduce spatial errors. Thus, motor learning was not enhanced by error sonification, although during the training the participant could benefit from it. It seems that the motor task was too slow, resulting in immediate corrections of the movement rather than in an internal representation of the general characteristics of the motor task. Therefore, further studies should elaborate the impact of error sonification when general characteristics of the motor tasks are already known.