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Since the beginning of the 1980:s, professor Bo
Molander at the psychological Institution at the University of
Umeå, has been studying precision motorics. The goal of
the study is to see how precision motorics applied at different
skill levels is affected by cognitive and emotional factors. A
big part of the studies has been laid on sports such as miniature
golf and golf, but there have been studies of other sports as
well, such as tennis-serves, basketball and pistol shooting. The
subjects of the experiments have been elite athletes and the tests
have either been performed in a controlled laboratory environment
or in the field with a realistic competitive environment.
This research has an applied part too, where
questions of direct value for the single athlete is the main issue.
Problems with nervousness and mental focus during important parts
of the competition belong to these questions. Neither the athlete
himself nor the best trainer can see all aspects of a quickly
performed motion such as a golf swing.
The task of measuring a complex high precision
motion and presenting it in form of curves and diagrams is not
a problem today. During the study an optical tracker system (Macreflex)
has been used to record the motions.
The problem with that system is that it takes some time and a
great amount of post-processing of the data to get the actual
results. The results are then presented as curves and diagrams,
that shows how the motion was performed.
Another problem with that approach, is that by
just looking at the curves and diagrams it is very hard for the
athlete and the test-supervisor to understand how the actual motion
was performed.
VRlab has together with institute for Psychology
developed an application that visualizes in real-time the motion
of a body-tracked person. The motions can be recorded an viewed
at a later time. It is also possible to view several motions at
the same time.
The tracker system used is a wireless 15-sensor
system from Ascention.
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