Sensitivity of Smoothness Measures to Movement Duration, Amplitude, and Arrests

Studies of sensory-motor performance, including those concerned with changes because of age, disease, or therapeutic intervention, often use measures based on jerk, the time derivative of acceleration, to quantify smoothness and coordination. However, results have been mixed: some researchers report sensitive discrimination of subtle differences, whereas others fail to find significant differences even when they are obviously present. One reason for this is that different measures have been used with different scaling factors. These measures are sensitive to movement amplitude or duration to different degrees. The authors show that jerk-based measures with dimensions vary counterintuitively with movement smoothness, whereas a dimensionless jerk-based measure properly quantifies common deviations from smooth, coordinated movement.