This study investigated visuomotor adaptation, a neurological process crucial for modulating motor responses based on visual and environmental cues, which involves transforming visual signals into motor commands, error correction, and multimodal recalibrations, with attentional processes playing a significant role. The primary aim was to assess the effects of white noise on visuomotor adaptation accuracy and efficiency in adults, hypothesizing that it would improve performance by enhancing concentration, and to explore gender-related influences. Fifty participants (N=50, 31 women; 19 men) with normal or corrected vision and no motor/hearing limitations engaged in three tasks: a Control (T1) without a controlled auditory stimuli (performed on the ambient sound environment), an experiment with Headphones (T2) without white noise, and an experiment with Headphones and White Noise (T3), all involving a pointing task with 35-diopter Fresnel prisms to induce visual distortion. Data, including maximum/minimum displacement and displacement tendency, were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA. Post-hoc analyses revealed significant differences in maximum displacement values between the first attempt of Task 1 and Task 2 (p=0.003), indicating T1 outperformed T2, while no significant differences were observed between Task 1 and Task 3 (p=0.446) or Task 2 and Task 3 (p=0.188). Regarding minimum displacement values, no significant differences were found between Task 1 and Task 2 (p=0.446) or Task 1 and Task 3 (p=0.188). A significant difference was found between the maximum and minimum displacement values within each task (T1, T2, T3) from the first to the last attempt (p<0.001). For displacement tendency, no statistically significant differences were noted between Task 1 and Task 2 (p=0.299) or Task 2 and Task 3 (p=0.299), but a significant difference emerged between Task 1 and Task 3 (p=0.032), demonstrating that Task 3 (displacement tendency: 0.032±0.09) required more attempts to reach the target compared to Task 1 (displacement tendency: −0.03±0.1).While no significant gender differences were found in maximum or minimum displacement, a notable distinction emerged in displacement tendency: women exhibited to achieve the goal in less attempts in Task 1 (p < 0.001), whereas men showed a more efficient displacement tendency in Tasks 2 and 3, adapting in fewer attempts (p < 0.001). Further analysis revealed that the commercially used white noise was not fully spectrally balanced (different constant frequencies from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.), and a subsequent test with corrected white noise indicated a more efficient displacement tendency. In conclusion, optimal visuomotor adaptation in this context occurred without external auditory stimuli, while headphones alone hindered it. White noise modulated these effects, influencing brain activation and spatial attention, with its efficacy potentially linked to its spectral composition. Crucially, significant gender differences in adaptation strategies were observed, highlighting a gender-dependent effect of white noise, which was not influenced by age, suggesting a critical role for attentional systems in visuomotor performance when controlled external auditory stimuli are present.
Neurophysiological Bases of Human Movement 2025 (King’s College London, UK) (2025) Proc Physiol Soc 67, C23
Poster Communications: Visuomotor Adaptation with Fresnel Prisms: Gender Influence and White Noise
Isabela Williams1, Francisco Suarez1
1Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Spain
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Where applicable, experiments conform with Society ethical requirements.