Relation between the kinematic synergy controlling swing foot and visual exploration during obstacle crossing

Abstract

To step over obstacles of varying heights, two distinct ongoing streams of activities—visual exploration of the environment and gait adjustment— were required to occur concurrently without interfering each other. Yet, it remains unclear whether and how the manner of embodied behavior of visual exploration is related to the synergistic control of foot trajectory to negotiate with the irregular terrain. Thus, we aimed to explore that how the synergistic control of the vertical trajectory of the swing foot (i.e., obstacle clearance) crossing an obstacle is related to the manner of visual exploration of the environment during approach. Twenty healthy young adults crossed an obstacle (depth: 1 cm, width: 60 cm, height: 8 cm) during their comfortable-speed walking. The visual exploration was evaluated as the amount of time spent in fixating the vicinity of the obstacle on the floor during the period from two to four steps prior to crossing the obstacle, and the strengths of kinematic synergy to control obstacle clearance were estimated using the uncontrolled manifold approach. We found that the participants with relatively weak synergy spent more time fixating at the vicinity of the obstacle from two to four steps prior to crossing the obstacle, and those participants exhibited greater amount of head flexion movement compared to those with stronger kinematic synergy. Taking advantage of this complex relationship between exploratory activities (e.g. looking movement) and performative activities (e.g. adjustment of ground clearance) would be crucial to adapt walking in a complex environment.