Homunculus Laboratory

Interactive Laboratory Procedure

We designed a multi-stage activity covering the building of a simplistic measurement tool for mechano-perception, a data collection process and finally, an interactive visualization of a personalized Homunculus. We carried out a pilot study with medical students from a local university, and we measured their usability and flow state after the experience. Our experience is base on https://www.maxplanckfl.org/fitzpatricklab/homunculus/

The goals of the procedure were: i) to get familiar with the concepts related with the homunculus and the somatosensory cortex of the brain, ii) to expose the sensibility of different body parts of the practitioners to generate the individual Homunculus; and iii) to visualize and interact with the Homunculus through a VR experience.

By using cardboard, tape, and toothpicks, teams create a simplistic measurement tool to sense their partner’s ability to sense functional sensibility in different parts of the body. After assembling the measurement tool, practitioners are encouraged to start sensing the sensitivity of their partners to distinguish between feeling one point or two points in six parts of the body: palm, arm, forehead, leg, back, and foot.

The experimenter is in charge of entering the registered measurements in a guide user interface designed to it. The virtual homunculus appears with its parts “exaggerated” in size, according to the measurements, considering the five distances established in the two-point discrimination tool.

Students of Health science and Engineering of the local University were invited to carry out the procedure by following the guidelines proposed and interact with the system in pairs.

Questionnaires of system usability and flow state were used after finishing the interaction to inquiry about the user experience.

We highlighting the importance of creating interactive contents that empower students with neuroscientific concepts that can be easier to learn but through experiential learning rather than conventional methods.

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