Oku Kyosuke, Tanaka Shinsuke, Nishizaki Yukiko, Fukada Chie, Kida Noriyuki
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan.
Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Mar 17;19:1560138. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1560138. eCollection 2025.
In daily life, we walk naturally by considering our physical characteristics and formulating appropriate motor plans. However, the impact of changes in body image on walking movements during motor planning remains poorly understood. Therefore, in this study, we examined changes in walking behavior under different conditions where body image was altered. We included 26 participants (13 men and 13 women, aged 18.27 ± 0.52) who performed walking movements under five conditions: eyes open, eyes covered, eyes covered while imagining their bodies becoming larger, eyes covered without imagining altered body size, and eyes open again. As a result, under the condition where participants imagined their bodies becoming larger, their step length, step completion time, and foot lift height increased. To generate a torque larger than the actual body size, the participants made a motor planning with a larger body image, resulting in an increase in step length. Since these results are attributed to the disparity between actual body size and body image, which affects motor planning, our findings have potential applications in rehabilitation and sports coaching settings.
在日常生活中，我们通过考虑自身身体特征并制定合适的运动计划来自然行走。然而，在运动规划过程中，身体意象的变化对行走动作的影响仍知之甚少。因此，在本研究中，我们考察了在身体意象改变的不同条件下行走行为的变化。我们纳入了26名参与者（13名男性和13名女性，年龄18.27 ± 0.52岁），他们在五种条件下进行行走动作：睁眼、闭眼、闭眼同时想象自己的身体变大、闭眼且不想象身体大小改变以及再次睁眼。结果发现，在参与者想象自己身体变大的条件下，他们的步长、步幅完成时间和抬脚高度增加。为了产生比实际身体尺寸更大的扭矩，参与者以更大的身体意象进行运动规划，从而导致步长增加。由于这些结果归因于实际身体尺寸与身体意象之间的差异，而这种差异会影响运动规划，我们的研究结果在康复和运动教练领域具有潜在应用价值。
