Summary
Generally the therapeutical effect of EMG feedback is viewed in terms of the immediate contiguity between response and information. According to this view any feedback delay would deteriorate the result. In this article the validity of this notion has been investigated. Three groups of normal subjects were required to perform a difficult movement under three feedback conditions: immediate EMG feedback, delayed EMG feedback, and a control (no EMG feedback) condition. The results indicated a significant difference between the EMG feedback groups and the control condition. However, no such difference was found between the immediate and delayed feedback conditions. The results suggested that the immediacy of the feedback is not the main factor in EMG feedback, but the specificity of the information.
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This study was supported by Grant no. 15-35-03 from the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research
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Mulder, T., Hulstijn, W. Delayed sensory feedback in the learning of a novel motor task. Psychol. Res 47, 203–209 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309447
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00309447