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Touch on the forearm can be associated with specific fingers
Fig. 2. Screenshots of the programme used during the training, showing the different training sessions. (a) Main menu. (b) Sessions 1, 2 and 4.
(c) Session 3, correct answer. (d) Session 3, wrong answer (correct answer, thumb).
mum of 3 h should pass between each learning occasion.
The following week the training was done once a day on 5
days chosen by the participant (occasions 11–15). Occasion
11 was the first follow-up and was completed in the same
manner as the first training occasion. The second follow-
up (occasion 17) took place one week after completion
of the learning period, and the third follow-up (occasion
18) 1 week later (2 weeks after completion of the training
period, i.e. 5 weeks in total to complete the training period).
Fig. 3. Learning protocol. Bold text with square borders denotes occasions for the
analysis of the age groups and the learning progress. During the first week the training
was done twice a day, the second week; once a day and the follow-up weeks (week 2,
4 and 5) only once. On each occasion, there are 4 sessions.
Learning
Each occasion contained 4 sessions (Fig. 3). Each session
consisted of 30 stimulations (6 on each finger in a pseudo-
random order). The 4 sessions were as follows:
• Evaluation session; stimuli were given on the skin of the
forearm using the servo motors and the subject indicated
the perceived finger location of the stimuli on the com-
puter screen using a mouse (Fig. 2b).
• Learning session; stimuli were given on the skin of
the forearm using servo motors and simultaneously the
programme displayed which finger the stimuli should be
associated with (Fig. 2b).
• Learning with feedback session; stimuli were given on
the skin of the forearm using the servo motors and the
subject indicated the perceived finger location of the
stimuli and was given immediate feedback as to whether
the response was correct (the marked finger turned green)
(Fig. 2c) or incorrect (the background turned red and the
correct finger turned black) (Fig. 2d).
• Evaluation session; Same as the first session (Fig. 2b).
The reason for starting with an evaluation session was
to capture the acquired stimulation association from the
previous occasion and, in addition, to be able to assess the
learning curve between the occasions and not within the
same occasion where the sessions are closely executed.
Completing an occasion took less than 15 mins. The time
lapse between the start of each single stimulation was 10 s.
J Rehabil Med 51, 2019