Quantification and statistical analysis

The statistical software used was GraphPad Prism, version 9.4.1 (GraphPad software) and R 4.2.1 (CRAN). Whether the measured ordinal variables were normally distributed was examined using the Shapiro-Wilk test and by visual confirmation with histograms. The confidence intervals (CI) for all statistical analyses were set at 95% and p-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. If either one had a non-normal distribution, two unpaired samples were subjected to the Mann-Whitney test to verify the results. If both were normally distributed, an F-test was performed to check for the presence or absence of equal variances. If the variances were equal, a 2-sample t-test was performed. On the other hand, if the variances were not equal, a 2-sample t-test with Welch’s modification was performed. Wilcoxon’s sign test was performed when one of the pieces of data had a non-normal distribution when comparing the data before and after contact with the LOVOT® for the same subject. If both were normally distributed, a paired t-test was performed.