Subjective vertical and postural activity

doi:10.1016/S0001-6918(96)00015-7

Acta Psychologica

Volume 95, Issue 2, February 1997, Pages 181-193

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-6918(96)00015-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to test the effect of postural information, resulting from the active control of balance, on the perception of the vertical. Subjects were required to adjust a luminous rod in two different visual contexts: in the dark or within a tilted visual frame. In these experiments, postural activity was manipulated by placing observers either in a situation of slight postural imbalance (Experiment 1) or in a situation of postural immobilization (Experiment 2). In both situations performance was compared with a control condition in which subjects were standing upright freely (Experiment 1) or sitting unconstrained (Experiment 2). Results showed no main effect of active posture or of immobilization on the visual perception of the vertical. In the third experiment, subjects were supine with their Z body axis perpendicular to the plane of the luminous rod. Thus, body orientation relative to gravity was modified and motor activity reduced. In this position, the physical vertical was perceived quite accurately in a dark environment. Moreover, in the tilted frame condition, the supine body position clearly improved vertical judgments. These results are discussed in relation to the ecological theory of orientation (Stoffregen and Riccio, 1988).

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Cited by (52)

Differences in body positional bilateral symmetry between stance and supine positions, and the impact of attention and awareness on postural symmetry
2019, Gait and Posture
Postural asymmetries may cause structural pathological conditions and impaired movement pattern. The influence of body position and awareness towards symmetry has not yet been elucidated. The aim of this study was twofold: First, to compare the body positional bilateral symmetry between standing and supine positions, and second, to examine whether the awareness to symmetry can modify posture perception and body positional bilateral symmetry.
We analyzed the degree of anterior postural alignment symmetry of 34 healthy subjects by photogrammetric method (three photographs in a standing position and three in a supine position). Each photo captured different state of awareness: Subjective Comfortable Posture (SCP), Subjective Perceived Symmetrical Posture (SPSP), and Guided Posture Protocol (GPP).
The standing position increased the symmetrical alignment of the neck (p < 0.013) and the upper limbs (p < 0.011). However, the supine position demonstrated increased symmetrical alignment of the upper trunk (p < 0.019) and the feet (p < 0.002). In the standing position, GPP showed greater symmetry of the neck (p < 0.022), the shoulders (p < 0.014), the thorax midline (p < 0.009), the upper trunk (p < 0.000) and the upper limbs (p < 0.029). No significant changes were observed in the supine position between the three states of awareness.
Study results indicate that the supine position shows greater degree of upper trunk's symmetrical alignment than the standing position. It also indicates that while standing, focusing attention into symmetry improves body positional bilateral symmetry. These results might have clinical implications when working with patients who suffer from asymmetric posture.
In the presence of others: Self-location, balance control and vestibular processing
2015, Neurophysiologie Clinique
Citation Excerpt :
Previous investigations showed that visual-field-dependent participants rely mostly on an allocentric frame of reference [80] and their posture is on average more unstable than that of visual-field-independent participants [36,52]. By contrast, there were more visual-field-independent participants in the ascending group, a population known to be less sensitive to visual references and to have better balance control [80,52]. Overall, these data indicate that visuo-vestibular perceptual styles, already shown for the judgment of line orientation [52,130,72], the interpretation of visual optic flow [73], and the identification of which way is up/down in a visual environment presented in various orientations [48], are also important for interpreting self-orientation and the direction of the first-person perspective.
The degree to which others in our environment influence sensorimotor processing has been a particular focus of cognitive neuroscience for the past two decades. This process of self-other resonance, or shared body representation, has only recently been extended to more global bodily processes such as self-location, self-motion perception, balance and perspective taking. In this review, we outline these previously overlooked areas of research to bridge the distinct field of social neuroscience with global self-perception, vestibular processing and postural control. Firstly, we outline research showing that the presence and movement of others can modulate two fundamental experiences of the self: self-location (the experience of where the self is located in space) and self-motion perception (the experience that oneself has moved or has been moved in space). Secondly, we outline recent research that has shown perturbations in balance control as a result of instability in others in our environment. Conversely to this, we also highlight studies in virtual reality demonstrating the potential benefits of the presence of others in our environment for those undergoing vestibular rehabilitation. Thirdly, we outline studies of first- and third-person perspective taking, which is the ability to have or take a visuo-spatial perspective within and out-with the confines of our own body. These studies demonstrate a contamination of perspective taking processes (i.e. automatic, implicit, third-person perspective taking) in the presence of others. This collection of research highlights the importance of social cues in the more global processing of the self and its accompanying sensory inputs, particularly vestibular signals. Future research will need to better determine the mechanisms of self-other resonance within these processes, including the role of individual differences in the susceptibility to the influence of another.
Cet article de synthèse résume les résultats des rares tentatives d’établir des ponts entre les neurosciences sociales et les études portant sur la localisation du soi, le contrôle postural et le traitement des informations vestibulaires. Premièrement, nous présentons des recherches montrant que l’observation d’autrui module deux expériences corporelles à la base de la conscience de soi : la localisation de soi, c’est-à-dire l’expérience d’où est localisé notre soi dans l’espace, et la perception de son propre déplacement dans l’espace. Par la suite, nous exposons des recherches récentes montrant que des instabilités posturales sont évoquées par l’observation des mouvements d’une tierce personne dans notre environnement. Ces données indiquent que le contrôle postural est sujet à des résonances sensori-motrices entre soi et autrui. Par conséquent, montrer des déplacements de corps humains dans des environnements virtuels serait efficace pour entraîner des patients lors de rééducations vestibulaires. Pour finir, nous rapportons des études sur la prise de perspective visuo-spatiale, c’est-à-dire la capacité à adopter une perspective centrée sur le corps (perspective en première personne) ou se situant hors des limites physiques du corps (perspective en troisième personne). Ces études suggèrent que la simple présence d’autrui évoque de façon automatique et implicite une prise de perspective en troisième personne, ce qui modifierait les traitements sensoriels au niveau du corps même de l’observateur. L’ensemble de ces études met en évidence l’importance des informations sociales dans le traitement plus global du soi et des entrées sensorielles qui le sous-tendent, en particulier celle des signaux sensoriels vestibulaires.
Integration of visual and haptic informations in the perception of the vertical in young and old healthy adults and right brain-damaged patients
2014, Neurophysiologie Clinique
Multimodal perception raises the issue of sensory integration. The aim of this study is to assess whether the visuo-haptic subjective vertical could be predicted from the visual and haptic unimodal performances, according to a Bayesian model, which optimizes the reliability of the multimodal estimate. The limits of the model were assessed by evaluating the impact of aging, cerebral damage and spatial deficits.
Young and older healthy participants, as well as patients with a right hemisphere lesion, suffering from spatial neglect or not, had to align a rod with the gravitational vertical in the visual, haptic and visuo-haptic modalities.
Visuo-haptic subjective vertical was correctly predicted by the model in healthy participants, as well as in patients in spite of different performances. An anticlockwise deviation of the subjective vertical was observed in the neglect group whatever the experimental conditions. By contrast, no deviation was observed in both non-neglect and healthy groups, for the visual and the visuo-haptic modalities. Nevertheless, the haptic subjective vertical was deviated, anticlockwise in the non-neglect patients and older healthy adults, and clockwise in the young healthy adults. Moreover, the variance was the smallest in the bimodal condition.
The integration of visual and haptic signals appeared to obey a Bayesian model optimizing the reliability of the multimodal estimate. This holds true despite of aging, brain damage or visuospatial disorders. Regarding the perception of the vertical, multisensory integration does not seem thus to depend only on right posterior cortical areas.
La perception multimodalitaire pose la question de l’intégration sensorielle. Le but de l’étude était de vérifier si la verticale subjective visuo-haptique pouvait être prédite à partir des performances unimodalitaires, selon un modèle bayésien optimisant la variabilité de l’estimation multimodalitaire. Les limites du modèle ont été testées en évaluant l’influence de l’âge, de lésions cérébrales ou de troubles visuospatiaux.
Des participants jeunes et plus âgés, ainsi que des patients porteurs d’une lésion hémisphérique droite, souffrant d’une négligence spatiale ou non, devaient aligner une barre avec la verticale gravitaire dans les modalités visuelles, haptiques et visuo-haptiques.
Les performances en modalité visuo-haptique étaient proches des prédictions du modèle, chez les participants sains comme chez les patients, malgré les différences de verticales subjectives. Chez les patients négligents, la verticale subjective était déviée dans les trois modalités. Chez les patients non négligents et les participants sains, elle n’était déviée que dans la modalité haptique, dans le sens anti-horaire chez les patients non négligents et les adultes sains plus âgés, et dans le sens horaire chez les jeunes adultes sains. Par ailleurs, la variabilité la plus faible était observée dans la modalité visuo-haptique.
L’intégration des informations visuelles et haptiques paraît obéir à un modèle bayésien optimisant la variabilité de l’estimation multimodalitaire, même chez des personnes vieillissantes, souffrant d’atteintes cérébrales ou de troubles visuospatiaux. Concernant la perception de la verticale, l’intégration multisensorielle ne semble donc pas dépendre de l’intégrité des aires corticales postérieures droites.
Balance
2013, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
This chapter addresses the important and undertreated problem of balance disorders. The chapter has a simplified summary of the physiology of balance problems in order to set the scene.
The issue of assessment is next addressed with discussion of important tests including the Berg Balance Scale and the Get Up and Go Test, and others. Posturography is discussed as well as assessment of the gravitional vertical. The assessment of vestibular function is of key importance and discussed in some detail. The focus of the chapter is on balance rehabilitation. Re-training of postural alignment and of sensory strategies are key but adaptation of the environment and re-training of cognitive strategies are also helpful in individual cases. Vestibular exercises can also be used. The chapter then critically analyses the efficacy of these treatments in specific balance disorders such as in stroke, Parkinson disease, polyneuropathies, multiple sclerosis, and vestibular disorders.
Overall, there is a growing body of evidence that balance rehabilitation improves symptoms, function, and quality of life for those troubled by these disabling problems.
Spatiotemporal dynamics of visual vertical judgments: Early and late brain mechanisms as revealed by high-density electrical neuroimaging
2011, Neuroscience
Citation Excerpt :
The laterality revealed in the present study has therefore to be related to brain mechanisms underlying VV judgments. Behavioral analysis revealed that the perceived VV was significantly deviated towards the tilted visual references, indicating that participants relied on available external, allocentric, references to perform vertical judgments (Bray et al., 2004; Isableu et al., 1997; Lopez et al., 2006; Luyat et al., 1997; Marendaz, 1998). However, the EP mapping did not reveal any significant EP map reflecting the influence of the visual reference on behavior.
Constructing and updating an internal model of verticality is fundamental for maintaining an erect posture and facilitating visuo-spatial processing. The judgment of the visual vertical (VV) has been intensively studied in psychophysical investigations and relies mainly on the integration of visual and vestibular signals, although a contribution of postural and somatosensory signals has been reported. Here we used high-density 192-channel evoked potential (EP) mapping and distributed source localization techniques to reveal the neural mechanisms of VV judgments. VV judgments (judging the orientation of visual lines with respect to the subjective vertical) were performed with and without a tilted visual frame. EP mapping revealed a sequence of neural processing steps (EP maps) of which two were specific for VV judgments. An early EP map, observed at ∼75–105 ms post-stimulus, was localized in right lateral temporo-occipital cortex. A later EP map (∼260–290 ms) was localized in bilateral temporo-occipital and parieto-occipital cortex. These data suggest that early VV-related neural processing involves the lateral and ventral visual stream and is related to visual processing concerning orientation, attention and comparison. The later, more dorsal, activation involves multimodal cortex subtending a constantly available and updated internal model of the vertical that we can refer to for the control of one's posture, actions, and visuo-spatial processing.
Analysis of dynamic sitting balance on the independence of gait in hemiparetic patients
2009, Gait and Posture
Citation Excerpt :
Luyat et al. reported on behavioral vertical as follows. Behavioral vertical is a measure to evaluate how the body is aligned along the gravitational force [10]. It is important in controlling balance in dynamic postures.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between dynamic sitting balance and walking ability in stroke patients. Patients were evaluated using functional independence measure (FIM), and those with a locomotion score of 5 or below were categorized into the dependent walking and below group (dependent group) and those with a score of 6 or above were categorized into the independent walking group (independent group). They were asked to take a sitting position at the center of an unstable platform (seesaw). The experimenter passively tilted the unstable platform to the paretic side or non-paretic side by 10° in the frontal plane. The unstable platform was released suddenly, with the experimenter supporting the platform with both hands, and the subjects were asked to control their posture so that their body axis came to the vertical position and the platform came to the horizontal position in the frontal plane. As a result, the body axis of left hemiplegic patients significantly tilted to the non-paretic side. On the other hand, in the dependent group in the right as well as left hemiplegic patients, the patients heads were tilted to the side from which tilting was started, though not significantly in both conditions. This study demonstrated that patients with poor walking function have a deviated verticality of the head and the body axis. We surmise that patients whose body axis tilts towards the non-paretic side during a dynamic balance maintenance task like this test would have lower walking independence.

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Subjective vertical and postural activity

Abstract

Lateral orientation and stabilization of human stance: Static versus dynamic cues

Experimental Brain Research

Eine scheinbare bedeutende Drehung von Objekten bei Neigung des Kopfes nach rechts oder links

A seemingly significant object rotation by leaning the body to the right or to the left

Virkows Archivs

Effect of body tilt on apparent verticality, apparent body position and their relation

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Orientation to the vertical during water immersion

Aerospace Medicine

Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences

Sur l'importance des effets et ses indicateurs dans l'analyse statistique des données

L'Année Psychologique

A balanced view of otolithic function

Psychological Review

Absence of depth processing in the rod and frame effect

Perception and Psychophysics

The ecological approach to visual perception

Perceptual and automatic aspects of the postural body scheme

Beware of the straight-ahead shifts, a nonperceptual change in experiments on adaptation to displaced vision

Perception

Human visual orientation

Visual factors in the perception of verticality

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Postural control system

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

A new solution to the problem of the subjective vertical

Naturwissenschaften