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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 22, 2025

Visualization Method for Proprioceptive Drift on a 2D Plane Using Support Vector Machine

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Published on: October 27, 2016

Age-related changes in visuo-proprioceptive processing in perceived body position.

Wataru Teramoto¹

¹Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kumamoto University, 2-40-1 Kurokami, Kumamoto City, 860-8555, Japan. teramoto@kumamoto-u.ac.jp.

Scientific Reports

|May 18, 2022

Summary

Older adults struggle with integrating visual and proprioceptive information, leading to greater reaching errors compared to younger adults. This difficulty is linked to increased fall risk in older individuals.

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Last Updated: Sep 22, 2025

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Gerontology
Human Movement Science

Background:

Visuo-proprioceptive processing is crucial for accurate body perception and movement control.
Age-related declines in sensory integration can impact mobility and increase fall risk in older adults.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate age-related changes in visuo-proprioceptive processing of body position.
To examine the temporal characteristics and body-part dependency of this processing.
To determine the association between visuo-proprioceptive processing and fall risk in older adults.

Main Methods:

Utilized mirror hand/foot illusions to create visuo-proprioceptive conflict.
Assessed reaching errors immediately and 15 seconds after illusion exposure.
Measured fall risk using the Timed Up-and-Go test.

Main Results:

Older adults showed larger reaching errors than younger adults, particularly for the hand.
Older adults exhibited consistent reaching errors, while young adults' errors decreased over time.
A negative correlation was found between fall risk and the reduction of reaching error over time in older adults.

Conclusions:

Older adults experience significant age-related deficits in visuo-proprioceptive integration for body perception.
These deficits are exacerbated in individuals with a higher risk of falling.
Impaired sensory processing contributes to the increased fall risk observed in the aging population.