Soczawa-Stronczyk Artur A, Bocian Mateusz
School of Engineering, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
Biomechanics and Immersive Technology Laboratory, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Jul 15;7(7):200622. doi: 10.1098/rsos.200622. eCollection 2020 Jul.
Little information is currently available on interpersonal gait synchronization in overground walking. This is caused by difficulties in continuous gait monitoring over many steps while ensuring repeatability of experimental conditions. These challenges could be overcome by using immersive virtual reality (VR), assuming it offers ecological validity. To this end, this study provides some of the first evidence of gait coordination patterns for overground walking dyads in VR. Six subjects covered the total distance of 27 km while walking with a pacer. The pacer was either a real human subject or their anatomically and biomechanically representative VR avatar driven by an artificial intelligence algorithm. Side-by-side and front-to-back arrangements were tested without and with the instruction to synchronize steps. Little evidence of spontaneous gait coordination was found in both visual conditions, but persistent gait coordination patterns were found in the case of intentional synchronization. Front-to-back rather than side-by-side arrangement consistently yielded in the latter case higher mean synchronization strength index. Although the mean magnitude of synchronization strength index was overall comparable in both visual conditions when walking under the instruction to synchronize steps, quantitative and qualitative differences were found which might be associated with common limitations of VR solutions.
目前关于地面行走中人际步态同步的信息很少。这是由于在确保实验条件可重复性的同时，对多步连续步态监测存在困难。假设沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）具有生态效度，那么这些挑战可以通过使用它来克服。为此，本研究提供了一些关于VR中地面行走二元组步态协调模式的初步证据。六名受试者在与一名步速引导者行走时覆盖了27公里的总距离。步速引导者要么是真实的人类受试者，要么是由人工智能算法驱动的具有解剖学和生物力学代表性的VR化身。在有无同步步伐指令的情况下，测试了并排和前后排列方式。在两种视觉条件下均未发现自发步态协调的证据，但在有意同步的情况下发现了持续的步态协调模式。在后一种情况下，前后排列而非并排排列始终产生更高的平均同步强度指数。尽管在同步步伐指令下行走时，两种视觉条件下同步强度指数的平均幅度总体相当，但发现了定量和定性差异，这可能与VR解决方案的常见局限性有关。
