Identification of human balance control responses to visual inputs using virtual reality

Abstract

In this paper, we developed a new methodological approach to study the effects of visual information on dynamic body sway in which we used VR to apply visual perturbations to induce AP body sway in human subjects. We designed a new visual stimulus waveform based on trapezoidal velocity pulses whose peak-to-peak amplitude and velocity could be modulated independently. Subsequently, we investigated how the amplitude and velocity of visual field motion influence the postural responses evoked in healthy adults. We found that the amplitude of the postural response increases linearly with the increasing amplitude of the visual stimuli, but the velocity has a nonlinear effect.