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Published on: March 3, 2018
Odd sensation induced by moving-phantom which triggers subconscious motor program.
Takao Fukui1, Toshitaka Kimura, Koji Kadota
1NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Morinosato, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan.
Plos One
|June 4, 2009
Summary
Stepping onto a stopped escalator triggers automatic motor programs, causing clumsy movements and an odd sensation. This occurs because subconscious motor control overrides conscious awareness of the stationary environment.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
- Human Perception
Background:
- Motor actions can be improperly performed even with full situational awareness.
- Stopped escalators elicit unique clumsy movements and sensations, unlike other surfaces.
- Previous research has not examined the specific sensorimotor adaptations to stopped escalators.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate the cause of the odd sensation experienced when stepping onto a stopped escalator.
- Determine if the sensation arises from unfamiliar motor behavior or habitual motor programs.
- Explore the action-perception linkage between automatic motor control and conscious awareness.
Main Methods:
- Compared motor behavior on a stopped escalator (SE) versus a moving escalator and wooden stairs (WS).
- Analyzed subjective feelings of odd sensation in SE and WS conditions.
- Correlated postural sway after stepping with the odd sensation.
Main Results:
- Participants exhibited moving escalator-specific motor actions on the stopped escalator, despite knowing it was stopped.
- Postural forward sway after stepping was directly linked to the odd sensation.
- A dissociation between conscious awareness and subconscious motor control was observed.
Conclusions:
- Subconscious motor control can automatically activate habitual programs based on visual cues, even when inappropriate.
- This dissociation between conscious awareness and automatic control leads to an attribution conflict and the odd sensation.
- Understanding this phenomenon offers insights into brain functions linking automatic control and conscious awareness.
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