Calibration of human locomotion and models of perceptual-motor organization.

People coordinate the force and direction of skilled actions with target locations and adjust the calibrations to compensate for changing circumstances. Are the adjustments globally organized (adjusting a particular action to fit a particular circumstance would generalize to all actions in the same circumstance); anatomically specific (every effector is adjusted independently of others); of functional (adjustments would generalize to all actions serving the same goal and generating the same perceptible consequences)? Across 10 experiments, changes in the calibration of walking, throwing, and turning-in-place were induced, and generalization of changes in calibration to functionally related and unrelated actions were tested. The experiments demonstrate that humans rapidly adjust the calibration of their walking, turning, and throwing to changing circumstances, and a functional model of perceptual-motor organization is suggested.

[1]  HighWire Press.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , 1781, The London Medical Journal.

[2]  G. Stratton.  Some preliminary experiments on vision without inversion of the retinal image. , 1896 .

[3]  F. W. Snyder,et al.  Vision with spatial inversion , 1952 .

[4]  R. Held,et al.  Motor-Sensory Feedback versus Need in Adaptation to Rearrangement , 1964, Perceptual and motor skills.

[5]  C. S. Harris.  Perceptual adaptation to inverted, reversed, and displaced vision. , 1965, Psychological review.

[6]  H. Pick,et al.  Visual and proprioceptive adaptation to optical displacement of the visual stimulus. , 1966, Journal of experimental psychology.

[7]  E. Gibson.  Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development , 1969 .

[8]  F. Guedry.  Psychophysics of Vestibular Sensation , 1974 .

[9]  M. Sanders.  Handbook of Sensory Physiology , 1975 .

[10]  A. Everett,et al.  Orientation and Mobility Techniques: A Guide for the Practitioner , 1976 .

[11]  R. Welch.  Perceptual modification : adapting to altered sensory environments / Robert B. Welch , 1978 .

[12]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[13]  Lee Dn,et al.  The optic flow field: the foundation of vision. , 1980 .

[14]  David N. Lee,et al.  Regulation of gait in long jumping. , 1982 .

[15]  J. Thomson.  Is continuous visual monitoring necessary in visually guided locomotion? , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[16]  D. Ingle,et al.  Brain mechanisms and spatial vision , 1985 .

[17]  G. M. Redding,et al.  Cognitive interference in prism adaptation , 1985, Perception & psychophysics.

[18]  James R. Lackner,et al.  Human Sensory-Motor Adaptation to the Terrestrial Force Environment , 1985 .

[19]  W. H. Warren,et al.  Visual control of step length during running over irregular terrain. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  J. Rieser,et al.  Sensitivity to Perspective Structure While Walking without Vision , 1986, Perception.

[21]  James E. Cutting,et al.  Perception with an eye for motion , 1986 .

[22]  D. Elliott,et al.  The influence of walking speed and prior practice on locomotor distance estimation. , 1987, Journal of motor behavior.

[23]  D W Eby,et al.  A study of visually directed throwing in the presence of multiple distance cues , 1987, Perception & psychophysics.

[24]  J. Rieser,et al.  Pointing at objects in other rooms: young children's sensitivity to perspective after walking with and without vision. , 1988, Child development.

[25]  M. Flückiger,et al.  The Perception of an Optical Flow Projected on the Ground Surface , 1988, Perception.

[26]  M A Goodale,et al.  The effects of time and distance on accuracy of target-directed locomotion: does an accurate short-term memory for spatial location exist? , 1988, Journal of motor behavior.

[27]  V Cavallo,et al.  How is gait visually regulated when the head is travelling faster than the legs? , 1988, Journal of motor behavior.

[28]  H. Pick,et al.  Inhibiting the Lombard effect. , 1989, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[29]  U. Bellugi,et al.  Language, modality and the brain , 1989, Trends in Neurosciences.

[30]  J. Rieser,et al.  Visual Perception and the Guidance of Locomotion without Vision to Previously Seen Targets , 1990, Perception.

[31]  A. Patla,et al.  Visual control of locomotion: strategies for changing direction and for going over obstacles. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[32]  J. Rieser,et al.  Young Children's Spatial Orientation with Respect to Multiple Targets When Walking without Vision. , 1991 .

[33]  Robert H. Logie,et al.  Mental images in human cognition , 1991 .

[34]  Alain Savoyant,et al.  Chapter 2 Visual imagery in locomotor movement without vision , 1991 .

[35]  J. Loomis,et al.  Visual space perception and visually directed action. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[36]  Felice L. Bedford,et al.  Perceptual and cognitive spatial learning. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[37]  K Hausen,et al.  Decoding of retinal image flow in insects. , 1993, Reviews of oculomotor research.

[38]  Michael F. Young,et al.  Imagery, action, and young children's spatial orientation: it's not being there that counts, it's what one has in mind. , 1994, Child development.