Dynamic arm movements attenuate the perceptual distortion of visual vertical induced during prolonged whole-body tilt

Abstract

Concurrent body movements have been shown to enhance the accuracy of spatial judgment, but it remains unclear whether they also contribute to perceptual estimates of gravitational space not involving body movements. To address this, we evaluated the effects of static or dynamic arm movements during prolonged whole-body tilt on the subsequent perceptual estimates of visual or postural vertical. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to continuously perform static or dynamic arm movements during prolonged tilt, and we assessed their effects on the prolonged tilt-induced shifts of subjective visual vertical (SVV) at a tilted position (during-tilt session) or near upright (post-tilt session). In Experiment 2, we evaluated how static or dynamic arm movements during prolonged tilt subsequently affected the subjective postural vertical (SPV). In Experiment 1, we observed that the SVV was significantly shifted toward the direction of prolonged tilt in both sessions. The SVV shifts decreased when performing dynamic arm movements in the during-tilt session, but not in the post-tilt session. In Experiment 2, as well as SVV, the SPV was shifted toward the direction of prolonged tilt, but it was not significantly attenuated by the performance of static or dynamic arm movements. The results of the during-tilt session suggest that the central nervous system utilizes additional information generated by dynamic body movements for perceptual estimates of visual vertical.