At each hop, e.g. from B to A, it should be verified if there is a link between a certain node located farther from the hole boundary (let us call it D) to a node located closer to the sink and non-reachable neither from A nor from B (let us call it C).
However, differently from experiment 1, in half of the trials the mug was located beyond a Plexiglas panel (Non-Reachable sector of the avatar's peripersonal space).
Post-hoc analysis showed that when another individual was present on the scene (Avatar condition) the above-reported HP effect in terms of congruency gain was observed both within reachable and non-reachable space (Reachable: 402.0 Vs 430.9 p<0.01; Non-Reachable: 406.1 Vs 431.7, p<0.01).
Data were entered in a two-way ANOVA with Mug Position (MP, Reachable sector of the avatar's peripersonal space Vs Non-Reachable sector of the avatar's peripersonal space), and Handle Position (HP, Congruent Vs Incongruent) as within-subject factors.
Data were entered in a tree-way ANOVA with: Mug Position (MP, Reachable Vs Non-Reachable), the Handle Position (HP, Congruent Vs Incongruent) and the Presence of another Individual (PaI, Absent Vs Cylinder Vs Avatar) as main factors.
Indeed, in the second experiment we introduced a near transparent barrier dividing the visual space of the avatar in both a visual reachable and a visual non-reachable sub-space.
The two factors were (i) the Position of the Mug with respect to the avatar (Reachable sector of the avatar's peripersonal space Vs Non-Reachable sector of the avatar's peripersonal space), (ii) the Position of the Handle (Congruent Vs Incongruent) with respect to the hand participants had to use to replicate the grasping movement.
The three factors were (i) the Position of the Mug with respect to the participant (Reachable Vs Non-Reachable); (ii) the Position of the Handle with respect to the hand the participants had to use to replicate the grasping movement (Congruent Vs Incongruent); (iii) the Presence of a virtual individual such an avatar (Absent Vs Cylinder Vs Avatar).
Exclusion criteria are planned inpatient treatments within the next 6 months and being non-reachable by phone.
For 23 index patients, PN could not be conducted due to refusal to cooperate (n = 8), being non-reachable (n = 7), and other reasons not to participate (n = 8).
This allows to detect some unwanted situations such as non-reachable rules which does not affect the system precision but increase the complexity and reasoning time, redundant rules causing multiple decisions about the same situation and logically conflicting rules which can lead to conflicting and non logical decisions [ 35].
