Human locomotion through a multiple obstacle environment: Strategy changes as a result of visual field limitation

Human locomotion through a multiple obstacle environment: Strategy changes as a result of visual field limitation

Jansen, S.E.M.
Toet, A.
Werkhoven, P.J.

2011

This study investigated how human locomotion through an obstacle environment is influenced by visual field limitation. Participants were asked to walk at a comfortable pace to a target location while avoiding multiple vertical objects. During this task, they wore goggles restricting their visual field to small (S: 40° × 25°), medium (M: 80° × 60°), large (L: 115° × 90°), or unlimited (U) visual field sizes. Full-body motion capture was used to extract for each trial the mean speed, pathlength, mean step width, magnitude of head rotation and head mean angular speed. The results show that compared with the U condition, the M and L conditions caused participants to select a wider path around the obstacles without slowing down or altering step width. However, the S condition did slow down the participants, and increased both their step width and path length. We conclude that only for the S condition, balancing problems were substantial enough to spend more energy associated with increased step width. In all cases, participants choose to optimize safety (collision avoidance) at the cost of spending more energy. © 2011 The Author(s).

Human
TPI - Training & Performance Innovations PCS - Perceptual and Cognitive Systems
BSS - Behavioural and Societal Sciences
Movement
Head movement
Locomotion
Obstacle avoidance
Steering
Strategy changes
Visual field restriction

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:eaff15dc-42da-447c-8b19-25946e1afdd1

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-011-2757-1

434679

0014-4819

Experimental Brain Research, 212 (3), 449-456

article