Kinesthetic Perception

Kinesthetic Perception is Involved in:

• perceiving where your body is in space
• regulating the amount of physical pressure applied
• mapping sensation to specific areas of the body

A Difficulty in This Cognitive Function Leads to:

• misjudging how close one’s body is to various objects, such as a door frame, another person, or the edge of the table, leading to bumping into things 
• difficulty in sports requiring quick and accurate awareness of body position
• applying too much or too little pressure in physical activities such as giving a massage, typing on a keyboard, or closing a door (sensory feedback provides information on how much pressure is being applied)
• applying uneven pressure to the page when writing, if the problem occurs in one’s writing hand 
• writing wandering off the line if one is not paying attention to where the hand is positioned 
• feeling pain but not immediately registering the location of the pain on their body
• being seen as clumsy and uncoordinated

One may compensate for this problem by using visual cues rather than sensory feedback to determine where one’s body is in space and the location on the body of physical sensation.

Enhancing This Function Leads to:

• improved coordination  
• increased ability to regulate the amount of pressure applied in physical situations, including writing
• increased ability to know on the body where sensation is occurring
• better sports performance