Psychophysical Modeling of Lifting Capacity for Hands Impairments of Chinese Males

摘要

This study adopted the psychophysical approach to develop regression models that they could be used to predict the lifting capacities of Chinese people with fingers impairments. Eight young Chinese male subjects went through 18 treatments of the experiment including the combinations of 3 hands condi-tions(both hands healthy,right or left hand impairment),3 lifting frequencies(one time maximum, 1 and 4 lifts per minute), and 2 box sizes(245 mm,and 360 mm,sagittal distance from body). Three fingers were tied together for each subject to simulate the condition of fingers impairments. Each subject was collected his anthropometric data,static/dynamic strengths and the values of maximum acceptable weight of lift(MAWL). Two series of regression models, MAWL or MAWL + body weight as response variable, were developed using the technique of stepwise regression. Thirty-one anthropometrical data and some suitable strength variables were used as candidates of independent variables for screening when constructing the models. The models with MAWL + body weight as dependent variable were better with a higher R~2 values and they could be used as a criteria to design of the manual material handling jobs for Chinese population with the problems of fingers impairment.