Preliminary Evaluation of the Effect of Mechanotactile Feedback Location on Myoelectric Prosthesis Performance Using a Sensorized Prosthetic Hand

A commonly cited reason for the high abandonment rate of myoelectric prostheses is a lack of grip force sensory feedback. Researchers have attempted to restore grip force sensory feedback by stimulating the residual limb's skin surface in response to the prosthetic hand's measured grip force. Recent work has focused on restoring natural feedback to the missing digits directly through invasive surgical procedures. However, the functional benefit of utilizing somatotopically matching feedback has not been evaluated. In this paper, we propose an experimental protocol centered on a fragile object grasp and lift task using a sensorized myoelectric prosthesis to evaluate sensory feedback techniques. We formalized a suite of outcome measures related to task success, timing, and strategy. A pilot study (n = 3) evaluating the effect of utilizing a somatotopically accurate feedback stimulation location in able-bodied participants was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the standardized platform, and to inform future studies on the role of feedback stimulation location in prosthesis use. Large between-participant effect sizes were observed in all outcome measures, indicating that the feedback location likely plays a role in myoelectric prosthesis performance. The success rate decreased, and task timing and task focus metrics increased, when using somatotopically-matched feedback compared to non-somatotopically-matched feedback. These results were used to conduct a power analysis, revealing that a sample size of n = 8 would be sufficient to achieve significance in all outcome measures.