Two questions can be posed for study: 1) Will the effect of auditory masking provided by a clinical noise significantly affect the performance of hearing children on the Knox Cube Test? 2) Are there significant differences among brain-injured, mentally, retarded, and "normal" children in ability to adjust to auditory masking in the performance of the Knox Cube Test?

Abstract In this dissertation, we aim to study the acupuncture effect on stroke rehabilitation. To achieve this purpose, a monitoring system for performance evaluation of motor task in functional MRI environment is developed. The hypothesis of the clinical study is that acupuncture stimulation at motor zone of scalp acupoint could modulate the brain activation of motor system. Such modulation effect can be explored by fMRI. So we use the monitoring system can be used to observe patients with predominantly motor deficit without remarkable speech problem. Besides the fMRI findings of motor activation and clinical motor performance will be compared. The monitoring system must be magnetic field compatible, and furthermore, it can also detect very subtle motor performance in the case of stroke during recovery. So the specific requirements of the system challenge the need. The system includes two subsystems. One collects the position signal using a data glove and the other acquires the force signal with a pneumatic system. The understanding of the correlation of the motor task and the brain activation in depth through the integration of the position and force data can therefore be greatly improved. The monitoring system will extend to be the estimation of recovery through the integration of motor task and fMRI. Keyword: functional MRI¡Bmonitoring system¡Bmotor task¡Bforce measurement

AIM The purpose of this experiment is to assess whether the advantages of variable practice are due to schema formation or to enhanced information processing (contextual interference) alone. DESIGN The design involved a 2 (mode; cognitive and motor) x 5 (practice schedule; blocked, random, constant distance one, constant distance two, and constant distance three) between subjects design resulting in ten groups. One hundred participants were randomly chosen from Human Movement students at Australian Catholic University and assigned to each of the ten groups (n=10). The cognitive mode involved the participants having to recognise the appropriate target from three geometrical shapes (triangle, square or circle), the triangle being the target in every case. The motor mode involved the participants having to tap on the target among three boxes that was merely filled in. The experiment consisted of ninety (3 blocks of 30) acquisition trials followed by ten transfer trials to a novel movement. MAIN HYPOTHESIS It was hypothesised that if facilitated transfer to a novel target occurs through schema formation, then there would be no differences between the motor groups and their corresponding cognitive groups. However, if facilitated transfer to a novel target occurs through enhanced information processing, then there would be differences between the motor groups and their corresponding cognitive groups. RESULTS Statistical analysis revealed a contextual interference effect for participants involved in the cognitive mode, in that the cognitive blocked group outperformed the cognitive random group in acquisition, but the reverse was the case in transfer. In the motor mode, the motor blocked group outperformed the motor random group in acquisition, and repeated the performance in transfer. CONCLUSION The results appear to indicate that for simple motor tasks it is the amount of variability of practice that is important for transfer to a novel task, while for tasks with a cognitive component, the schedule of practice is critical.

Stroke is a chronic, lifelong illness, and full recovery requires continuous physical and cognitive rehabilitation. Such long-term rehabilitation is cost-prohibitive; however an approach to providing long-term therapy that has recently gained traction is the use of socially assistive agent (SAA) systems. These systems make use of non-contact communication devices and can be used to guide people through a variety of rehabilitative tasks. They have the potential supplement current rehabilitation practices by providing motivation during intense exercises, and can extend the reach of the therapist into remote and home settings. Though SAA systems have been used in a variety of rehabilitative and assistive contexts, there remain questions regarding the best design for such systems. Currently there is a lack of detail on what type of feedback optimizes user performance, and the role that the delivery medium (e.g., a human coach, a tablet, or a robot) plays in user performance. The purpose of this thesis is the design of a system to investigate the interaction between feedback and medium type when implemented for a novel motor task. The selected task is modeled on the shuffleboard game, with the delivery medium including a human coach and tablet and two types of augmented feedback. The designed system incorporates various hardware and software components. A vision system communicates with a laptop to record and analyze motor task data, with a program that also interfaces with a control circuit. The control circuit may transmit data through Bluetooth to a custom-built app on the tablet, which then provides augmented feedback with audio dialogue. Otherwise, the human coach is provided designed feedback from the laptop. An initial system evaluation was performed with this constructed system using pilot participants to validate the design. The initial system evaluation demonstrated the ability to improve participant performance; however, it also demonstrated a high level of task difficulty. Several changes may need to be incorporated to the system to ensure better learning for participants. This includes changes to the physical setup, as well as changes to the frequency of the augmented feedback. This thesis may be used as the foundation for future experimentation with different delivery media or types of augmented feedback to discover how to best optimize user performance for a novel motor task.

Work title: The response of the visual system when driving a car in real conditions and in a simulator during a parallel motor task. Aims: To implement a laboratory measurement in a driving simulator and in real conditions during a parallel motor task. To track the response of the visual system during the task and to determine potential differences in the response of the visual system and in the speed in the simulator and in the real car environment. Methods: The laboratory measurement was realized in a driving simulator OCTAVIA II. The measurement in real conditions was realized in Škoda Octavia as well. The eye-tracking method was used to track the drivers` eyes. Results: In the simulator the more experienced driver managed to do the parallel motor task within a shorter period of time than the less experienced driver, lower frequency of looks at the radio during the tasks with the more experienced driver was not proved. There was not an evidence of more balanced speed during the drive with the more experienced driver in the simulator. On the average the driver spent shorter time doing the tasks in the real environment than in the simulator and the total number of looks at the radio was lower. The speed of the drive in the real environment was lower than the speed in the simulator. Key words:...

Balance of motor network activity between the two brain hemispheres after stroke is crucial for functional recovery. Several studies have extensively studied the role of the affected brain hemisphere to better understand changes in motor network activity following stroke. Very few studies have examined the role of the unaffected brain hemisphere and confirmed the testretest reliability of connectivity measures on unaffected hemisphere. We recorded blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals from nine stroke survivors with hemiparesis of the left or right hand. Participants performed a motor execution task with affected hand, unaffected hand, and both hands simultaneously. Participants returned for a repeat fMRI scan 1 week later. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we evaluated effective connectivity among three motor areas: the primary motor area (M1), the premotor cortex (PMC) and the supplementary motor area for the affected and unaffected hemispheres separately. Five participants manual motor ability was assessed by Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment scores and root-mean square error of participants tracking ability during a robot-assisted game. We found (i) that the task performance with the affected hand resulted in strengthening of the connectivity pattern for unaffected hemisphere, (ii) an identical network of the unaffected hemisphere when participants performed the task with their unaffected hand, and (iii) the pattern of directional connectivity observed in the affected hemisphere was identical for tasks using the affected hand only or both hands. Furthermore, paired t-test comparison found no significant differences in connectivity strength for any path when compared with one-week follow-up. Brain-behavior linear correlation analysis showed that the connectivity patterns in the unaffected hemisphere more accurately reflected the behavioral conditions than the connectivity patterns in the affected hemisphere. Above findings enrich our knowledge of unaffected brain hemisphere following stroke, which further strengthens our neurobiological understanding of stroke-affected brain and can help to effectively identify and apply stroke-treatments.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T15:59:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joao Otacilio L dos Santos.pdf: 2060361 bytes, checksum: b4c669f94feb668acc0602d83f24931d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The aim of this study was to analyze the content and construct validity of motor tasks proposed by the assessment instruments used to discriminate the motor performance. Nine academic authorities on motor development and motor assessment area were recruited to address the aims in theoretical terms. Three hundred and fifty children from Manaus, aged between eight and ten years of both gender participated of this study to address the empirical terms. The selected variables was: conceptual dimensionality of motor tasks, internal structure of motor tasks, gender, age and motor performance in motor tasks. To determine the conceptual dimensions of the tasks a questionnaire developed by the authors of this study (Appendix 3) was used. To study the internal structure of the task, we used the criteria described in the literature and adapted by the authors based on concepts previous determined. To determine the motor performance in tasks, 27 motor tasks were taken from three instruments of motor assessment: Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2), Körperkoordination Test für Kinder (KTK) and Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD - 2). Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (p≤0.05). The results showed that 25% of motor tasks demonstrated a level of agreement among the experts, or the experts classified within the same dimension. The internal structure of the motor task had a specific analysis according to their nature depending on the criteria used. When analyzing the complexity/difficulty of the task, 33% of motor tasks showed a distribution similar to a normal distribution curve. The majority of the tasks were negative asymmetric that means an easy task since the most individuals achieved the maximum value proposed by the task. The discrimination according to gender showed that only 30% of the tasks significantly classified boys as superior than girls in the majority of the tasks. The discrimination according to age showed that fourteen tasks were significantly discriminatory (52%). Children of eight years consistently showed lower motor performance in the task compared to children with nine. Furthermore, children of nine years consistently showed lower motor performance in the task compared to children with ten. The construct validity of the motor tasks was assessed by exploratory factor analysis and was possible to extract four factors explaining 50.09% of the variance. From the 27 motor tasks, fifteen tasks (56%) achieved statistical criteria and explain the construct validity. Thus, the psychometric assumptions have to be respected in its entirety; in other words, the choice of items should be based on both theoretical and empirical elements. Therefore, caution on the importance of reversing the traditional procedure of construction and validation of instruments (concept, construct, dimensions, items or tasks) for empirical initial approach of multiple motor possibilities that can converge to the needs of the construct previously defined. / O objetivo da pesquisa foi analisar a validade de conteúdo e construto de tarefas motoras propostas por instrumentos de avaliação utilizados para discriminar o desempenho motor. Para contemplar os objetivos em termos teóricos participaram nove autoridades acadêmicas na área do desenvolvimento motor e avaliação motora. Para contemplar os objetivos em termos empíricos participaram 350 indivíduos, idades entre oito e dez anos, de ambos os sexos, regularmente matriculados em escolas na cidade de Manaus. As variáveis selecionadas para a pesquisa foram: dimensionalidade conceitual das tarefas motoras, organização interna das tarefas motoras, sexo, idade e desempenho motor nas tarefas motoras. Para determinar as dimensões conceituais das tarefas foi utilizado um questionário construído pelos próprios autores desta pesquisa (Apêndice 3). Para o estudo da organização interna da tarefa foram utilizados critérios descritos na literatura e ainda critérios adaptados pelos autores desta pesquisa definidos com base em conceitos já determinados. Para determinar o desempenho motor nas tarefas foram aplicadas 27 tarefas motoras retiradas de três instrumentos de avaliação motora Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2), Körperkoordination Test für Kinder (KTK) e Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2). Os dados foram analisados a partir dos recursos da estatística descritiva e inferencial (p≤0,05). Os resultados desta pesquisa demonstraram que apenas 25% das tarefas motoras em análise demonstraram um nível de concordância entre os juízes, ou seja, os juízes as classificaram dentro da mesma dimensão. Em relação à organização interna da tarefa motora foi possível observar que as tarefas em análise apresentam especificidades de acordo com sua natureza, variando em função do critério utilizado. Ao analisar a complexidade/dificuldade da tarefa constatou-se que apenas 33% das tarefas motoras apresentaram uma distribuição próxima a uma curva de distribuição normal. Assim, a maioria das tarefas apresentaram assimetria negativa, característica de tarefa fácil, pois a grande parte dos indivíduos conseguiu atingir o valor máximo proposto pela tarefa. Ao observar o poder de discriminação de acordo com o estrato de sexo observou-se que 30% das tarefas apenas discriminaram significantemente meninos de meninas, sendo os meninos superiores na maioria das tarefas. Em relação aos estratos idade quatorze tarefas apresentaram poder de discriminação significante (52%), onde as crianças de 08 anos sempre demonstraram desempenho motor na tarefa inferior as de 9 anos que consecutivamente apresentaram desempenho motor inferior as crianças de 10 anos. Em relação à validade de construto das tarefas motoras desta pesquisa foi possível extrair, por meio da análise fatorial exploratória, quatro fatores explicando 50,09% da variância. Das 27 tarefas motoras analisadas quinze tarefas (56%) supriram os critérios estatísticos e explicam o construto estudado. Conclui que os pressupostos psicométricos na escolha dos itens precisam ser respeitados em sua totalidade, ou seja, a escolha dos itens deve ser baseada tanto em elementos teóricos quanto empíricos. Assim, alerta-se para a importância de reverter o tradicional procedimento de construção e validação de instrumentos de medida (conceito, construto, dimensões, itens ou tarefas) para uma abordagem inicial empírica das múltiplas possibilidades motoras que possa convergir para as necessidades do construto previamente definido.