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Human manual control performance in hyper-gravity

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Abstract

Hyper-gravity provides a unique environment to study how misperceptions impact control of orientation relative to gravity. Previous studies have found that static and dynamic roll tilts are perceptually overestimated in hyper-gravity. The current investigation quantifies how this influences control of orientation. We utilized a long-radius centrifuge to study manual control performance in hyper-gravity. In the dark, subjects were tasked with nulling out a pseudo-random roll disturbance on the cab of the centrifuge using a rotational hand controller to command their roll rate in order to remain perceptually upright. The task was performed in 1, 1.5, and 2 G’s of net gravito-inertial acceleration. Initial performance, in terms of root-mean-square deviation from upright, degraded in hyper-gravity relative to 1 G performance levels. In 1.5 G, initial performance degraded by 26 % and in 2 G, by 45 %. With practice, however, performance in hyper-gravity improved to near the 1 G performance level over several minutes. Finally, pre-exposure to one hyper-gravity level reduced initial performance decrements in a different, novel, hyper-gravity level. Perceptual overestimation of roll tilts in hyper-gravity leads to manual control performance errors, which are reduced both with practice and with pre-exposure to alternate hyper-gravity stimuli.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the participation of our anonymous subjects. We thank Caglar Unlu and Ebubekir Tipi for technical support, Amer Makhleh and Gregory Kennedy for assistance in data collection, Alan Natapoff for advice on statistics, Kevin Duda, Paul DiZio, and Faisal Karmali for reviewing a draft of this manuscript and helpful suggestions. This work was supported by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) through NASA NCC9-58 (TKC, CMO, LRY) and via National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)/National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 DC04158 (DMM). We also thank Bill Mitchell and NASTAR Center for additional project support. Preliminary results and other aspects of the experiment were presented at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference (Clark et al. 2013), as well as part of a doctoral thesis (Clark 2013). The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Man Vehicle Laboratory, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Torin K. Clark, Charles M. Oman & Laurence R. Young

  2. The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA

    Torin K. Clark

  3. National Aerospace Training and Research Center, Southampton, PA, USA

    Michael C. Newman

  4. Jenks Vestibular Physiology Lab, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Department of Otology and Laryngology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Daniel M. Merfeld

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  1. Torin K. Clark
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Correspondence to Torin K. Clark.

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Clark, T.K., Newman, M.C., Merfeld, D.M. et al. Human manual control performance in hyper-gravity. Exp Brain Res 233, 1409–1420 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4215-y

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