Mowbray, R. and Gottwald, J.M and Zhao, M. and Atkinson, A.P. and Cowie, D. (2019) 'The development of visually guided stepping.', Experimental brain research., 237 (11). pp. 2875-2883.
Abstract
Adults use vision during stepping and walking to fine-tune foot placement. However, the developmental profile of visually guided stepping is unclear. We asked (1) whether children use online vision to fine-tune precise steps and (2) whether preci- sion stepping develops as part of broader visuomotor development, alongside other fundamental motor skills like reaching. With 6-(N = 11), 7-(N = 11), 8-(N = 11)-year-olds and adults (N = 15), we manipulated visual input during steps and reaches. Using motion capture, we measured step and reach error, and postural stability. We expected (1) both steps and reaches would be visually guided (2) with similar developmental profiles (3) foot placement biases that promote stability, and (4) correlations between postural stability and step error. Children used vision to fine-tune both steps and reaches. At all ages, foot placement was biased (albeit not in the predicted directions). Contrary to our predictions, step error was not correlated with postural stability. By 8 years, children’s step and reach error were adult-like. Despite similar visual control mechanisms, stepping and reaching had different developmental profiles: step error reduced with age whilst reach error was lower and stable with age. We argue that the development of both visually guided and non-visually guided action is limb-specific.
Item Type: | Article |
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Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution. Download PDF (Advance online version) (1799Kb) |
Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution. Download PDF (1779Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05629-5 |
Publisher statement: | © The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Date accepted: | 14 August 2019 |
Date deposited: | 09 September 2019 |
Date of first online publication: | 30 August 2019 |
Date first made open access: | 17 October 2019 |
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