The Impact of Hand Movement Velocity on Cognitive Conflict Processing in a 3D Object Selection Task in Virtual Reality

Abstract

Detecting and correcting incorrect body movements is an essential part of everyday interaction with ones environment. The human brain provides a monitoring system that constantly controls and adjusts our actions according to our surroundings. However, when our brains predictions about a planned action do not match the sensory inputs resulting from that action, cognitive conflict occurs. Much is known about cognitive conflict in 1D/2D environments; however, less is known about the role of movement characteristics associated with cognitive conflict in 3D environment. Hence, we devised an object selection task in a virtual reality (VR) environment to test how the velocity of hand movements impacts human brain responses. From a series of analyses of EEG recordings synchronized with motion capture, we found that the velocity of the participants hand movements modulated the brains response to proprioceptive feedback during the task and induced a prediction error negativity (PEN). Additionally, the PEN originates in the anterior cingulate cortex and is itself modulated by the ballistic phase of the hands movement. These findings suggest that velocity is an essential component of integrating hand movements with visual and proprioceptive information during interactions with real and virtual objects.