Influence of Visual Feedback on Roll Tilt Perceptual Training

Overview

Journal Otol Neurotol

Specialties Neurology
Otorhinolaryngology

Date 2023 Aug 17

PMID 37590890

Authors

Andrew R Wagner

Daniel M Merfeld

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that the addition of visual feedback during roll tilt perceptual training would yield a significant reduction in vestibular perceptual thresholds relative to a control group.

Background: We previously showed that roll tilt vestibular thresholds could be improved through a perceptual training protocol that used a simple auditory cue. Variability in training outcomes within the treatment group suggested that an auditory cue alone may be suboptimal for improving self-motion perception.

Methods: In 10 healthy adults, roll tilt vestibular thresholds, quantifying the smallest motion that can be reliably perceived, were measured before ("pretraining") and after ("posttraining") a training protocol designed to improve roll tilt perception. The protocol included 1,300 trials of 0.5 Hz whole-body roll tilt over 5 days, with participants being given both an auditory cue ("correct' vs. "incorrect') and visual feedback (viewing a stationary visual scene) after indicating their perceived direction of tilt. A control group (N = 10) underwent only the "pretraining" and "posttraining" assessments.

Results: The training group showed an average decrease in roll tilt vestibular thresholds of 1.7% ± 56%, with training outcomes varying widely. Three individuals showed an average increase in roll tilt thresholds of 69.7%, whereas the remaining seven adults showed an average decrease in thresholds of 32.3%.

Conclusion: These data show that visual feedback during roll tilt perceptual training leads to heterogenous outcomes, but in a subset of individuals, it may lead to improvements in perceptual precision. Additional work is needed to define the optimal training parameters, including feedback schema, before investigating potential clinical applications.

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