Poster #161 - Interplay of Visual, Haptic, and Proprioceptive Information in Postural Control Changes from Childhood to Adulthood

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Integrative Statement

Multisensory inputs are essential for maintaining balance, yet how the integration of such sensory information occurs across development remains an unanswered question. Moreover, the majority of work that has been conducted on this topic has looked principally at visual and haptic information; other potential sources of information, such as proprioceptive input, has been significantly understudied. A pair of experiments addressed these issues, examining children’s (3 years to 11 years) and adults’ (undergraduate students) postural stability under conditions systematically combining multiple sensory inputs. Specifically, systematic combinations were created of sensory inputs for visual information, produced by manipulating presence versus absence, haptic input, produced by manipulating presence versus absence (Experiment 1: stable haptic input, Experiment 2: unstable haptic input), and proprioceptive input, produced by having participants adopt a natural standing posture (feet shoulder width apart), a feet together posture (feet side by side, touching), a tandem stance (toe of the back foot touching the heel of the front foot), and a Chaplin stance (heels together, feet approximately 90 degree angle), with the impact of these manipulations on postural stability (variability of centre of pressure such as root-mean-square distance and mean velocity) measured. Analyses of adults’ postural stability with respect to these manipulations demonstrated that when stance became increasingly unstable (e.g., decreased base of support), thereby diminishing proprioceptive input, visual and haptic inputs became increasing salient when the haptic information was reliable (i.e., the stable haptic condition), but only visual input was salient when the haptic information had reduced reliability (e.g., the unstable haptic condition). In contrast, this effect was not observed in children. Specifically, for the younger children (age 3 – 6 years) visual input did not effectively reduce body sway across stances providing differing amounts of proprioceptive input (different bases of support). On the contrary, the benefit of visual input was observed for older children (age 6 – 11 years) when they also received reliable (stable) haptic input. Moreover, resembling the findings with adults, the older children also demonstrated a differential effect of haptic input, with unreliable (unstable) haptic information failing to influence postural stability. These results highlight an important development difference in how visual, haptic, and proprioceptive inputs are integrated, with younger children (less than 6 years) showing less integration of multisensory information than older children (greater than 6 years) and adults.

Authors

• Theodore C.K. Cheung, University of Toronto Scarborough
  Presenting Author

• Piali Bhati, University of Toronto, Scarborough
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gobika Sithamparanathan, University of Toronto, Scarborough
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mark Schmuckler, University of Toronto, Scarborough
  Non-Presenting Author