Abstract
[Introduction] Visual processing is facilitated around a hand, which is known as hand proximity attention. Possibly there is a mechanism that attracts attention to the area near a hand for accurate hand movements. It can be the case that the attention effect is larger when hand is in action, comparing when it is stationary. In this study, we investigated the effects of hand movement on hand proximity attention. [Methods] Visual probes were presented around a hand using a head mount display (HMD). The participant held a pen type force feedback device (Phantom omni) by a hand to move the device along a circular path. The pen tip was attached to a ball bearing so the pen movement was restricted to a circular path. While the participant was moving a hand or keeping it stationary, visual stimuli were presented at various locations along the circular path to measur4e attention effect by the flash lag effect (FLE). FLE is the illusory shift of flashed stimulus relative to a moving object, which can be used to estimate attention modulation because FLE becomes smaller when attention directed to the stimuli. FLE was measured at locations with various distance from the hand to show spatial tuning of hand proximity attention, which is the effect of proprioceptive signals because there was no visual information of the hand. [Results] The FLE varied dependently on the distance from the hand, suggesting the hand proximity attention without a visual hand. The hand proximity effect is larger with a hand in motion comparing with a hand in stationary. Further analysis showed that attention modulation with active hand movement was not different from that with passive hand movement. [Conclusion] The present experiment revealed that moving hand attracts attention more than stationary hand.