Abstract
Eye-hand coordination is crucial for the performance of most daily activities. Spatiotemporal control of upper limb and eye movements matures during development and is often impacted by a brain injury and other neurological conditions. Thus, examining eye-hand coordination could reveal deficits in the control of movements and compensatory neuromotor strategies in individuals with neuropathologies; however, the reliability, validity and sensitivity of eye-hand coordination measures must be first established. The purpose of this study was to assess the test-retest repeatability of temporal eye-hand coordination measures. Twenty-nine healthy young adults were tested on two occasions 5-10 days apart using a bead threading task which involves reaching, precision grasping and placement of a bead on a needle. Eye and hand movements were recorded concurrently using the Eyelink 2 eyetracker and the Optotrack motion capture system. Temporal coordination was assessed by calculating the eye-hand latency difference for reaches towards the bead and the needle, and dwell time (i.e., fixation duration) on the bead and the needle. Test-retest repeatability was assessed using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC). Results revealed moderate reliability for eye-hand latency difference when reaching to the bead (ICC=0.70), and good reliability for reaches towards the needle (ICC=0.83). The reliability for dwell time was also moderate for bead fixation (ICC=0.73) and needle fixation (ICC=0.66). These findings suggest a potential utility of eye-hand coordination measures in the clinical assessment of upper limb reaching tasks.Acknowledgments: Thank you to Noor Parray for assisting with data analysis.