Yu Yingjia, Bakshi Avijit, Panic Alexander S, DiZio Paul, Lackner James R
Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory, MS 033, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA, 02454, USA.
Exp Brain Res. 2025 Jun 10;243(7):173. doi: 10.1007/s00221-025-07100-0.
The role of vision in stabilizing balance has long been recognized, and previous studies have shown that non-supportive fingertip touch can enhance postural stability. However, the interaction between haptic feedback and the illusion of self-motion remains underexplored. We investigated how different phases of visual motion (no motion, visual motion, self-rotation and displacement illusion), motion order (stationary first vs. motion first), and fingertip cutaneous feedback jointly influence balance and the dynamics of haptic contact. Using a head-mounted display, we presented a virtual room that rotated around the standing participants' vertical axis. Participants viewing the rotating scene soon experience illusory self-motion and displacement. We examined how the moving visual scene destabilized posture and how it interacted with tactile cues that typically stabilize balance. Our findings revealed differential effects in classical and stochasticity-sensitive analyses. Postural regulation was distinctly influenced by motion phase, order, and tactile feedback. Changes in motion perception-no motion, visual motion, and apparent self-rotation-were linked to both classical and stochastic aspects of postural sway. In contrast, motion order specifically influenced balance metrics encoding stochasticity, with no effect on those filtering out stochastic variability. Notably, the influence of past visual motion perception persisted, affecting postural sway even after motion ceased. The stabilizing effects of touch were reaffirmed, and motion perception significantly influenced the applied touch forces. Both stochastic and non-stochastic attributes of balance and touch force are responsive to visual motion perturbations and illusions, though motion order exclusively affects stochastic dynamics. These findings provide insights into multisensory interactions.
视觉在稳定平衡中的作用早已得到认可，先前的研究表明，非支撑性指尖触摸可增强姿势稳定性。然而，触觉反馈与自我运动错觉之间的相互作用仍未得到充分探索。我们研究了视觉运动的不同阶段（无运动、视觉运动、自我旋转和位移错觉）、运动顺序（先静止与先运动）以及指尖皮肤反馈如何共同影响平衡和触觉接触的动态变化。我们使用头戴式显示器呈现了一个围绕站立参与者垂直轴旋转的虚拟房间。观看旋转场景的参与者很快就会体验到虚幻的自我运动和位移。我们研究了移动的视觉场景如何破坏姿势稳定性，以及它如何与通常稳定平衡的触觉线索相互作用。我们的研究结果揭示了经典分析和对随机性敏感分析中的不同效应。姿势调节明显受到运动阶段、顺序和触觉反馈的影响。运动感知的变化——无运动、视觉运动和明显的自我旋转——与姿势摆动的经典和随机方面都有关联。相比之下，运动顺序特别影响编码随机性的平衡指标，而对滤除随机变异性的指标没有影响。值得注意的是，过去视觉运动感知的影响持续存在，即使运动停止后仍会影响姿势摆动。触摸的稳定作用得到了再次确认，并且运动感知显著影响所施加的触摸力。平衡和触摸力的随机和非随机属性都对视觉运动扰动和错觉有反应，尽管运动顺序仅影响随机动态变化。这些发现为多感官相互作用提供了见解。
