The role of handedness in visuoproprioceptive tasks

Joint position sense of the dominant and nondominant shoulder was measured in healthy subjects to quantify error in a joint position sense task with and without visual information. Previous studies have examined sensory differences in dominance with conflicting results. Some have shown that no differences exist, while others show that movements with the dominant arm rely more heavily on visual information and movements with the nondominant arm rely more heavily on proprioceptive information. In the present study, subjects wore a virtual reality headset with a tracker on their forearm while performing a joint position sense task. Using the headset, subjects were presented with either a visual representation of their forearm location or no visual information about forearm location. No difference was found between sides. However, difference was seen between true vision and no vision regardless of arm dominance.