Citation

Cates A, Gordon KE. J. Neurophysiol. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, American Physiological Society)

DOI

10.1152/jn.00155.2022

PMID

35822745

Abstract

Vision plays a vital role in locomotor learning, providing feedback information to correct movement errors and feedforward information to inform learned movement plans. Gaze behavior, or the distribution of fixation locations, can quantify how visual information is used during the motor learning process. But how gaze behavior adapts during motor learning and in response to changing motor performance is poorly understood. The present study examines if and how an individual's gaze behavior adapts during a sequence learning, target stepping task. We monitored the gaze behavior of 12 healthy young adults while they walked on a treadmill and attempted to precisely step on moving targets with variable step length. Participants completed a total of 11 trial blocks of 102 steps each. We hypothesized that both mean fixation distance would increase (participants would look farther ahead), and step error would decrease with experience. Following practice, participants significantly increased their fixation distance (p<0.001) by 0.27±0.18 steps and decreased their step error (p<0.001) by 4±1.7 cm, supporting our hypothesis. Our results suggest that early in the learning process participants gaze behavior emphasized gathering visual information necessary for feedback motor control. As motor performance improved with experience participants shifted their gaze fixation farther ahead placing greater emphasis on the visual information used for feedforward motor control. These findings provide important information about how gaze behavior changes in parallel with improvements in walking performance.

Language: en

Keywords

Gait; Gaze Behavior; Locomotion; Motor Control; Motor Learning