An Auditory Display System for Aiding Interjoint Coordination

Patients with lack of proprioception are unable to build and maintain ‘internal models’ of their limbs and monitor their limb movements because these patients do not receive the appropriate information from muscles and joints. This project was undertaken to determine if auditory signals can provide proprioceptive information normally obtained through muscle and joint receptors. Sonification of spatial location and sonification of joint motion, for monitoring arm/hand motions, was attempted in two pilot experiments with a patient. Sonification of joint motion though strong time/synchronization cues was the most successful approach. These results are encouraging and suggest that auditory feedback of joint motions may be substitute for proprioceptive input. However, additional data will have to be collected and control experiments will have to be done.