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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 20, 2026

Evaluating Postural Control and Lower-extremity Muscle Activation in Individuals with Chronic Ankle Instability

Evaluating Postural Control and Lower-extremity Muscle Activation in Individuals with Chronic Ankle Instability

Published on: September 18, 2020

Large lateral head movements and postural control.

Cédrick T Bonnet¹, Pascal Despretz

¹Laboratoire de Neurosciences Fonctionnelles et Pathologies, University of Lille, CNRS, France. cedrick.bonnet@chru-lille.fr

Human Movement Science

|July 14, 2012

Summary

Task demands, not gaze shifts themselves, influence postural control. Body sway adjusts to maintain visual task performance across different stances, demonstrating task performance as a key constraint.

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Area of Science:

Human movement science
Biomechanics
Motor control

Background:

Postural control is crucial for stability during daily activities.
Riccio and Stoffregen (1988) proposed task performance as the primary factor influencing postural control changes.
Understanding how visual tasks affect posture is essential for movement analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the hypothesis that task performance is the predominant constraint on postural control.
To examine the effect of large, intentional gaze shifts on postural sway in different stance conditions.

Main Methods:

Twelve healthy young adults participated.
Participants performed large lateral gaze shifts (150° visual angle, 0.5 Hz or 1 Hz) and a control task (fixating a stationary dot).
Postural sway was measured using center of pressure (COP) variability in narrow, standard, and wide stances.

Main Results:

Body sway variability was similar across visual tasks in a narrow stance, indicating sway was constrained for task performance.
In standard and wide stances, COP sway variability increased during gaze shifts, suggesting sway was allowed to minimize energy expenditure.
Results supported the hypothesis that task demands, rather than gaze shifts alone, dictate postural adjustments.

Conclusions:

Intentional large gaze shifts do not inherently cause postural instability.
Postural sway can increase significantly during gaze shifts, but this is modulated by stance width and task demands.
Task performance acts as a primary constraint, guiding postural adjustments to ensure successful visual task completion.