KINESIOLOGICAL MOTION EXPERT-SYSTEM

Kinesiology builds on anatomical information by establishing which mus cles contribute to human motion and to what extent. This 'body as mach ine' approach seeks to identify particular muscles as contractile 'eng ines'. The learning of muscular contributions to human motions based o n long tables of origins, insertions, innervations, and actions is ted ious and often incomplete based on author judgments of which muscles a nd motions to include. The kinesiological motion expert system (KMES) was developed so that students could easily select joints, actions, an d tension types and receive computerized output listing the muscles th at could contribute to the motion requested. In addition, a student ca n select a particular muscle and tension type and the program will ret urn all of the motions that the selected muscle might contribute. The KMES was written in PDC prolog(TM) and has a knowledge base of 1583 mo vements. Implementation of the KMES in kinesiology classes resulted in an increase in average student final scores of approximately 15% (F-( 3,F-190) = 12.11, P < 0.0001).