Short-Term Reproduction of Active Movement with Visual Feedback and Passive Movement with a Therapist’s Hands

TL;DR

Active pelvis movements with visual feedback lead to better short-term movement reproduction than passive movements by a therapist.

Contribution

The study compares active and passive movement instruction methods for pelvis movement reproduction in an upright stance.

Findings

Active movement with visual feedback had smaller medial–lateral reproduction errors than passive movement immediately after instruction.

Passive movement showed consistently greater anterior–posterior reproduction errors compared to active movement.

The difference in medial–lateral errors between conditions disappeared after 30 seconds.

Abstract

Reproducing instructed movements is crucial for practice in motor learning. In this study, we compared the short-term reproduction of active pelvis movements with visual feedback and passive movement with the therapist’s hands in an upright stance. Sixteen healthy males (M age = 34.1; SD = 10.2 years) participated in this study. In one condition, healthy males maintained an upright stance while a physical therapist moved the participant’s pelvis (passive movement instruction), and in a second condition, the participant actively moved their pelvis with visual feedback of the target and the online trajectory of the center of pressure (active movement instruction). Reproduction errors (displacement of the center of pressure in the medial–lateral axis) 10 s after the passive movement instruction were significantly greater than after the active movement instruction (p < 0.001), but this difference disappeared 30 s after the instruction (p = 0.118). Error of movement reproduction in the anterior–posterior axis after the passive movement instruction was significantly greater than after the active movement instruction, no matter how long the retention interval was between the instruction and reproduction phases (p = 0.025). Taken together, active pelvis movements with visual feedback, rather than passive movement with the therapist’s hand, is better to be used for instructing pelvis movements.

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