First Insights About the Relationship Between Gesture Intuitiveness and Muscle Synergy

FREIRE E; CANO LA; RIVOLTA L; ALBARRACIN, AL; ACOSTA LP; FARFÁN FD

Congreso; XXIV CONGRESO ARGENTINO DE BIOINGENIERÍA Y XIII JORNADAS DE INGENIERÍA CLÍNICA; 2023

SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE BIOINGENIERIA

This paper presents initial findings from investigating thecorrelation between gesture intuitiveness and muscle synergy. A preliminary pilot experiment was conducted with a single participant, focusingon connectivity analysis of electromyography data to extract Muscle Networks features. The study aimed to test the hypothesis that enhancedcoordination of muscle synergies serves as a reliable indicator of gesture intuitiveness. Sixteen muscles were monitored, and IntermuscularCoherence was calculated for each muscle pair. The weighted GlobalEfficiency metric was initially evaluated but showed no significant correlation with the intuitiveness indices. To overcome this limitation, anovel metric called Effective Average Strength (EAS) was introduced toconsider only the essential muscles for each gesture. Statistical analysisrevealed a significant correlation between EASgamma1 and nearly all intuitiveness indices, providing early evidence to support the hypothesis.Future work will refine the experimental protocol, expand the participantpool, and include a subjective questionnaire to further validate the relationship between EASgamma1, intuitiveness indices, and the perceivedease of performing gestures.