Bridging the Proprioceptive Gap: Ergonomic Development and Evaluation of a Task-Specific Controller for Adolescent First-Aid Serious Games

Abstract

Although digital twins provide high visual immersion in medical education, existing emergency training paradigms suffer from a significant mismatch between sensory input and motor output. First-aid skills rely heavily on proprioception and physical resistance, yet current digital interactions reduce complex biomechanical tasks to symbolic commands, creating a proprioceptive gap and risks of negative muscle memory transfer. This study proposes a human-factors-driven framework to map user perceptions to physical engineering parameters. A survey of 320 adolescents identified perceived control and visual aesthetics as core drivers of embodied cognition. Ergonomic benchmarking established a 12 percent scaling factor based on hand data differences between adolescents and adults. Morphological evolution using industrial clay determined an optimal 22.5 degree tilt angle for the operation panel to ensure an anatomical neutral position. A high-fidelity prototype was developed featuring anthropometric alignment, a modular magnetic system, and nonlinear variable stiffness feedback that simulates realistic resistance from soft tissue to bone. A within-subject experiment with 20 adolescents showed that the specialized device significantly outperformed general-purpose tools with p < 0.001. The mean System Usability Scale score increased from 61.75 to 85.25, while the Borg RPE fatigue rating decreased from 15.35 to 10.75. These results confirm that the design significantly enhances embodied cognition. This research provides an innovative tool for first-aid training and establishes a quantifiable paradigm for developing specialized interaction equipment for safety-critical tasks.

Keywords: Hand Ergonomics, Evidence-based Design, Adolescents, Modular Interaction, Serious Games

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007448