Abstract
This experiment investigated the effect of walking without optic flow on subsequent vection induction and strength. Two groups of participants walked for 5 min (either wearing Ganzfeld goggles or with normal vision) prior to exposure to a vection-inducing stimulus. We then measured the onset latency and strength of vection induced by a radially expanding pattern of optic flow. The results showed that walking without optic flow transiently yielded later vection onsets and reduced vection strength. We propose that walking without optic flow triggered a sensory readjustment, which reduced the ability of optic flow to induce self-motion perception.
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Notes
There are, however, examples where consistent cross-modal stimulation does not enhance but rather reduce vection: For example, adding velocity-matched linear treadmill walking to a visual forward motion simulation has been shown to reduce vection (Ash et al. 2012; Kitazaki et al. 2010; Onimaru et al. 2010), whereas linear treadmill walking was found to enhance vection when the visual velocity was 30 times faster than the walking velocity (Seno et al. 2011a, b).
Even though the experimenter endeavoured to have participants walk at the same pace in both conditions, participants were (not surprisingly) somewhat more cautious when walking during Ganzfeld conditions.
Note there were vection dropouts (i.e. periods of “no vection”) in some cases after vection induction.
Latency data for one trial were lost for one participant in the Control condition. Therefore, we excluded his latency data from these analyses.
The effect sizes here were larger for vection magnitude than for vection latency. This might be related to the fact that the changes in vection are easier for observer to respond to in terms of strength (compared to latency). In our previous studies, vection strength ratings were typically most reliable and sensitive measure of the changes of vection (e.g. Seno et al. 2013).
While it is possible that prior walking with optic flow facilitated subsequent vection, it is more likely that prior walking without optic flow either inhibited vection induction or resulted in a sensory/multisensory cue reweighting so as to favour non-visual cues. However, in order to rule out the possibility that prior walking with optic flow facilitated subsequent vection, we would need a Control condition where the participant was stationary for 5 min prior to exposure to the optic flow.
If there was a perceptual effect of the Ganzfeld viewing on vection we would have expected it to be transient. It is possible however that if there had instead been a cognitive or experimental demand based effect of Ganzfeld viewing then this might have been more likely to be long (or longer) lasting.
It should also be noted here that we believe that our results were not a result of dark adaptation but were mediated by sensory readjustment as we hypothesized. In future, we should also examine potential effects of walking with eye closed or walking in the complete dark room.
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Seno, T., Palmisano, S., Riecke, B.E. et al. Walking without optic flow reduces subsequent vection. Exp Brain Res 233, 275–281 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4109-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4109-4