Walking along curved paths of different angles: the relationship between head and trunk turning

Abstract

Walking along a curved path requires coordinated motor actions of the entire body. Here, we investigate the relationship between head and trunk movements during walking. Previous studies have found that the head systematically turns into turns before the trunk does. This has been found to occur at a constant distance rather than at a constant time before a turn. We tested whether this anticipatory head behavior is spatially invariant for turns of diVerent angles. Head and trunk positions and orientations were measured while participants walked around obstacles in 45°, 90°, 135° or 180° turns. The radius of the turns was either imposed or left free. We found that the head started to turn into the direction of the turn at a constant distance before the obstacle (»1.1 m) for turn angles up to 135°. During turns, the head was consistently oriented more into the direction of the turn than the trunk. This diVerence increased for larger turning angles and reached its maximum later in the turn for larger turns. Walking speeds decreased monotonically for increasing turn angles. Imposing Wxed turn radii only aVected the point at which the trunk started to turn into a turn. Our results support the view that anticipatory head movements during turns occur in order to gather advance visual information about the trajectory and potential obstacles.

Anticipatory postural adjustments during cutting manoeuvres in football and their consequences for knee injury risk

“…Indeed, the placement of the foot determines the position of the centre of pressure and defines in which direction the CoM can be accelerated (Patla et al, 1999). Second, head orientation is used to adjust the visual field and to initiate the reorientation of the whole body (Hicheur, Vieilledent, & Berthoz, 2005;Sreenivasa, Frissen, Souman, & Ernst, 2008;Vallis & McFadyen, 2005). Finally, the control of trunk motion is crucial (Sreenivasa et al, 2008;Vallis & McFadyen, 2005).…”

“…Second, head orientation is used to adjust the visual field and to initiate the reorientation of the whole body (Hicheur, Vieilledent, & Berthoz, 2005;Sreenivasa, Frissen, Souman, & Ernst, 2008;Vallis & McFadyen, 2005). Finally, the control of trunk motion is crucial (Sreenivasa et al, 2008;Vallis & McFadyen, 2005). The trunk yaw (rotation about the long axis of the body) orientates the body in the new direction.…”

A practical technique for gait recognition on curved and straight trajectories

“…The authors of [4] claimed that the stride length of people walking along a curved trajectory is smaller than when walking a long straight line. However, other differences between walking along a straight line and walking on a curve have been noted in several studies [12,2,1]. These differences are (1) the body leans towards the center of the curvature, see Fig.…”

“…This is the simplest style of walking. However, it rarely happens in daily life since walking paths tend to be curves rather than straight lines [12], but most work has assumed the latter.…”

Acoustic redirected walking with auditory cues by means of wave field synthesis

“…and all three blocks per participant were repeated on another day in reverse order. All of these chosen walking velocities are slower than the average walking velocity of about 1.4 m/s (Sekiya et al, 1996;Sreenivasa et al, 2008), because users tend to walk slower in VEs, than they would in reality (Mohler et al, 2007;Streuber et al, 2009;Souman et al, 2010). Figure 2.10 shows the identi ed detection thresholds for all participants per walking velocity, and a distinctive di erence between the slowest tested walking velocity and the higher ones.…”