Comparison of Visual and Kinesthetic Motor Imagery for Upper Limb Activity

Brain computer interfaces have different applications, according to the input stimulation of the participants and the context where they are put to use. Motor imagery is one of the most common applications. However, this specific implementation is often associated with visual imagination of the activity under study. The present proposal deals additionally with kinesthetic imagination, which includes proprioceptive sensations. For this purpose, power spectral density was computed for visual and kinesthetic motor imagery and actual movement execution. The data was compared between the three motor tasks, employing the Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney statistic tests. Results showed a reduced dispersion of power spectral density during imagery. In addition, there were no statistically significant differences among imagery and actual movement execution.