The Short-Term Effects of Real-Time Virtual Reality Feedback on Motor Learning in Dance

Abstract

Does virtual reality (VR) represent a useful platform for teaching real-world motor skills? In domains such as sport and dance, this question has not yet been fully explored. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of two variations of real-time VR feedback on the learning of a complex dance movement. Novice participants (n = 30) attempted to learn the action by both observing a video of an expert's movement demonstration and physically practicing under one of three conditions. These conditions were: full feedback (FULL-FB), which presented learners with real-time VR feedback on the difference between 12 of their joint center locations and the expert's movement during learning; reduced feedback (REDUCED-FB), which provided feedback on only four distal joint center locations (end-effectors); and no feedback (NO-FB), which presented no real-time VR feedback during learning. Participants' kinematic data were gathered before, immediately after, and 24 hr after a motor learning session. Movement error was calculated as the difference in the range of movement at specific joints between each learner's movement and the expert's demonstrated movement. Principal component analysis was also used to examine dimensional change across time. The results showed that the REDUCED-FB condition provided an advantage in motor learning over the other conditions: it achieved a significantly greater reduction in error across five separate error measures. These findings indicate that VR can be used to provide a useful platform for teaching real-world motor skills, and that this may be achieved by its ability to direct the learner's attention to the key anatomical features of a to-be-learned action.

Augmented visual, auditory, haptic, and multimodal feedback in motor learning: A review

“…Commonly, the effects of concurrent visual feedback have been investigated in complex tasks that are rather artificial than related to any sport, with a few exceptions (Eaves, Breslin, van Schaik, Robinson, & Spears, 2011;Todorov et al, 1997;Wulf et al, 1998). Although a few sport simulators incorporating augmented or virtual reality have been developed, such as for rowing (Frisoli et al, 2008;Ruffaldi, Gonzales, et al, 2009;von Zitzewitz et al, 2008), canoeing (Tang, Carignan, & Olsson, 2006), bicycling (Carraro, Cortes, Edmark, & Ensor, 1998;Mestre, Maïano, Dagonneau, & Mercier, 2011), bobsledding (Kelly & Hubbard, 2000), archery (Göbel, Geiger, Heinze, & Marinos, 2010), gymnastics (Multon, Hoyet, Komura, & Kulpa, 2007), and dancing (Drobny & Borchers, 2010;Drobny, Weiss, & Borchers, 2009;Nakamura, Tabata, Ueda, Kiyofuji, & Kuno, 2005), these simulators have not been used to examine the effectiveness of augmented feedback for motor learning or to evaluate different visual feedback designs.…”

“…Animations can have an advantage over real videos, because the animations can be reduced to the most relevant information, as has been shown in an assembly task (Petzold et al, 2004). Since humans can recognize complex biological motions by observing only a few point lights placed on a moving body (Giese & Poggio, 2003), point lights can also provide effective feedback, as has been shown for dancing (Eaves et al, 2011). However, feedback about other complex multidimensional movements in 3-D space might require more natural visualizations.…”

Virtual Reality Technologies in Telecommunication Services

“…To date numerous VR systems for learning and acquiring motion have been proposed and their target motions have had a wide variety, ranging from dancing [69], [70], [71] and sports [72] to rehabilitation [73], [74]. A lot of advantages are indicated for such VR-based training systems.…”

“…The above study can be considered as one that provides temporally reduced feedback. On the other hand, spatially reduced feedback, which gives only a limited portion of an object, has been proposed and its efficacy suggested [71]. This study employed ballet as a training target; it compared the efficacy of three feedback conditions: full, reduced, and none.…”

A Survey of Multimodal Systems and Techniques for Motor Learning

“…Despite the complex capabilities of the visual domain, often the representation of feedback in this modality is kept relatively simple for complex motor tasks to prevent an overload of information [72].…”