ETH Zürich, Institute of Human Movement Sciences and Sport, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 27, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
Gait Posture. 2012 May;36(1):78-84. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2012.01.008. Epub 2012 Feb 11.
In the present study we aimed to track the influence of natural gaze behaviour on postural control from early childhood into adulthood. We measured time series of centre of pressure (COP) as well as head movement in three children groups aged around five (n=16), eight (n=15), and eleven (n=14) and in one group of young adults (n=15) during quiet stance with eyes closed, gaze fixed on a dot, and with gaze shifts between two dots. We adopted magnitude and irregularity of COP displacement as indexes of postural control and cross correlation between COP displacement and target oscillation as an index of the dynamical coupling between the postural and visual systems. Magnitude and irregularity of COP displacement decreased with age, which suggests a steady improvement of postural control from five to beyond eleven years of age. Cross correlations were weak and relative phases highly variable across age groups. Across conditions, and most prominently in the gaze shift conditions, 5-year-olds showed both more head movement and lower postural stability than other age groups. Finally, only in 5-year-olds did we find a marked deterioration of postural stability with gaze shifts. We thus conclude that excessive head movement, particularly during gaze shifts, may be a primary cause of lower postural stability in young children compared to older children and adults.
在本研究中，我们旨在从儿童早期到成年追踪自然注视行为对姿势控制的影响。我们在三组儿童（年龄分别约为 5 岁（n=16）、8 岁（n=15）和 11 岁（n=14））和一组年轻成年人（n=15）中测量了闭眼、注视固定点和注视两点之间转移时的中心压力（COP）时间序列以及头部运动。我们采用 COP 位移的幅度和不规则性作为姿势控制的指标，采用 COP 位移与目标摆动之间的互相关作为姿势和视觉系统之间动力耦合的指标。COP 位移的幅度和不规则性随着年龄的增长而减小，这表明从 5 岁到 11 岁以上，姿势控制的稳定性不断提高。相关性较弱，相对相位在不同年龄组之间变化较大。在所有条件下，尤其是在注视转移条件下，5 岁儿童的头部运动比其他年龄组更多，姿势稳定性更低。最后，只有 5 岁儿童在注视转移时表现出明显的姿势稳定性恶化。因此，我们得出结论，与年龄较大的儿童和成年人相比，过度的头部运动，尤其是在注视转移期间，可能是幼儿姿势稳定性较低的主要原因。
