Visual guidance of landing behaviour when stepping down to a new level

When stepping down from one level to another, the leading limb has to arrest downward momentum of the body and subsequently receive and safely support bodyweight before level walking can begin. Such step downs are performed over a wide range of heights and predicting when and where contact between the landing limb and the lower level will be made is likely a critical factor. To determine if visual feedback obtained after movement initiation is habitually used in guiding landing behaviour, the present study determined whether pre-landing kinematics and the mechanics of landing would be modulated according to the type of visual feedback available during the stepping down phase. Ten healthy participants (32.3 ± 7.9 years) stepped, from a standing position, down from three different heights onto a forceplatform, either coming immediately to rest or proceeding directly to walking across the laboratory. Repeated trials were undertaken under habitual vision conditions or with vision blurred or occluded 2–3 s prior to movement initiation. Pre-landing kinematics were assessed by determining, for the instant of landing, lead-limb knee and ankle angle, stepping distance, forwards positioning of the body CM within the base of support and the forwards and downwards body CM velocity. Landing mechanics for the initial contact period were characterized using lead limb vertical loading and stiffness, and trail limb un-weighting. When vision was occluded movement time, ankle plantarflexion and knee flexion were significantly increased compared to that determined for habitual vision, whereas forwards body CM positioning and velocity, vertical loading and stiffness, and trail limb un-weighting, were significantly reduced (p < 0.05). Similar adaptations were observed under blurred conditions, although to a lesser extent. Most variables were significantly affected by stepping task and step height. Subjects likely reduced forwards CM position and velocity at instant of landing, in order to keep the CM well away from the anterior border of the base of support, presumably to ensure boundary margins of safety were high should landing occur sooner or later than expected. The accompanying increase in ankle plantarflexion at instant of landing, and increase in single limb support time, suggests that subjects tended to probe for the ground with their lead limb under modified vision conditions. They also had more bodyweight on the trail limb at the end of the initial contact period and as a consequence had a prolonged weight transfer time. These findings indicate that under blurred or occluded vision conditions subjects adopted a cautious strategy where by they ‘sat back’ on their trail limb and used their lead limb to probe for the ground. Hence, they did not fully commit to weight transfer until somatosensory feedback from the lead limb confirmed they had safely made contact. The effect of blurring vision was not identical to occluding vision, and led to several important differences between these conditions consistent with the use of impoverished visual information on depth. These findings indicate that online vision is customarily used to regulate landing behaviour when stepping down.