Subjective perceptions when using motion tracking systems – a comparison among healthy subjects, individuals post-stroke, and therapists

Different tracking technologies allow users to interact with virtual reality environments. Most research regarding tracking systems has focused on studying their performance parameters, mainly accuracy. However, even though subjective parameters also determine the responses evoked by the virtual reality experience, least efforts have been made to study their influence. The subjective perceptions of healthy subjects, individuals post-stroke, and physical therapists after using three tracking technologies (optical, electromagnetic, and skeleton tracking) to interact with a virtual rehabilitation exercise were collected via questionnaire. Results showed that subjective perceptions and preferences are far from being constant among different populations, thus suggesting that these considerations, together with the performance parameters, should be taken into account when designing a rehabilitation system.