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Related Experiment Videos

Visual control of posture during walking: functional specificity

W H Warren1, B A Kay, E H Yilmaz

  • 1Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA. Bill_Warren@brown.edu

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
|August 1, 1996
PubMed
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Visually controlled posture during walking is directionally specific, influenced by visual scene structure. Postural sway is anisotropic and flattened in planar environments, suggesting biases in visual perception.

Area of Science:

  • Biomechanics
  • Human locomotion
  • Visual perception

Background:

  • Postural control is essential for stable locomotion.
  • Visual cues significantly influence postural adjustments.
  • Previous research has not fully elucidated the specificity of visual control during walking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the functional specificity of visually controlled posture during locomotion.
  • To determine how different visual environments affect postural sway.
  • To explore the underlying mechanisms of visual-postural control.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted using participants walking on a treadmill.
  • Large-screen displays simulated various visual environments (stationary hallway, self-motion hallway, frontal wall).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Superimposed oscillations specified postural sway in six directions.

    • Main Results:

    • Postural sway was isotropic and directionally specific when viewing a frontal wall.
    • In hallway conditions, sway was anisotropic (lateral > anterior-posterior) and diagonal responses were flattened.
    • Reversing the treadmill orientation relative to the hallway reversed the anisotropy and flattening, confirming visual scene determination.

    Conclusions:

    • Postural control during locomotion is functionally specific and anisotropic in planar visual environments.
    • Visual scene structure, particularly optical expansion and motion parallax, biases postural responses.
    • These findings suggest that visual perception mechanisms truncate parallax in planar environments, influencing postural control.