Perceptual-cognitive development and cognition of movement
Michael Horvat, Ronald V. Croce, Caterina Pesce, Ashley Fallaize in Developmental and Adapted Physical Education, 2019
Spatial orientation refers to the ability to recognize an object’s arrangement in space. Perception of spatial relationships involves the relationship between the self and objects in the environment. Many motor tasks are performed in environments in which objects are oriented in specific ways or in environments whereby performance is defined by particular spatial dimensions. Together, spatial orientation and perception of spatial relationships allow us to move freely through our environment safely and proficiently. Very early in life, by about age 4, children can learn and distinguish between directional extremes (e.g., high – low, over – under, front – back, etc.), and can learn and distinguish vertical from horizontal positions; however, they still have problems with oblique or diagonal orientations. By age 8, most children can differentiate oblique and diagonal orientations but may still confuse left and right (Haywood & Getchell, 2014). Based on this information, teachers should be cognizant of how young children respond to directional orientations and how feedback given in these terms might be misconstrued.
The Central Nervous System Organization of Behavior
Rolland S. Parker in Concussive Brain Trauma, 2016
The stretch reflex provides information as to the extent of muscle contraction and whether this is appropriate to the intended motion. It is a proprioceptive function that has a feedback function modifying central commands for voluntary motion. It keeps the muscle length close to a desired reference value. Hyperactive or hypoactive stretch reflexes can result from CNS lesions since motor neuron excitability is dependent upon both excitatory and inhibitory descending influences (Pearson & Gordon, 2000a). Motor control benefits from the fractionation of spatial information. Spatial guidance of motor behavior requires that the neurons controlling movement of the eyes, head, and arm also represent the location of visible targets. Nevertheless, despite occipital blindness (“blindsight”), such persons can locate a target (Colby & Olson, 2003). Loss of afferent input causes motion to be irregular and uncoordinated. When walking, sensory information is required about ground reaction forces and displacement of the support, internal forces and displacements, and the relative velocity of body segments. Spatial orientation is required for precise movements (Prochazka & Yakovenko, 2002).
Synopsis of the Nervous System
Walter J. Hendelman, Peter Humphreys, Christopher R. Skinner in The Integrated Nervous System, 2017
The frontal lobe, the area in front of the central fissure, is generally described as having chief executive functions, in other words the part of the brain involved with major planning and decision making. The parietal lobe, between the central fissure and the parieto-occipital fissure, functions mainly in the reception and integration of the various sensory inputs and contributes significantly to spatial orientation. The occipital lobe, behind the parieto-occipital fissure and mostly located on the medial and inferior aspects of the brain, has predominantly visual functions. The temporal lobe, located below the lateral fissure, has various sound-related association tasks on its lateral portion and structures important for memory formation and emotion in its medial portion (see Section 1.2.9).
Spatial orientation in virtual environment compared to real-world
Published in Journal of Motor Behavior, 2021
S. Pastel, C. H. Chen, D. Bürger, M. Naujoks, L. F. Martin, K. Petri, K. Witte
This paper preliminarily found that the spatial orientation skill is similar in VR and in the RW. To walk different distances and to estimate them verbally could be assessed equally well in RW and VR. The results showed that a more detailed environment with more room features and a higher developed HMD was not necessary to complete this task. The route recreation task was also successfully performed by the participants with minor exceptions. We should emphasize that only a small part of the complex construct of spatial orientation was examined in the current study. Orientating in the real or virtual environment requires more components such as perceiving information from multiple sensory cues, maintaining in short- and long-term memory, or visualization of the own body. Those factors were not analyzed in the current study, but they are helping us in the successful completion of daily tasks. VR is an excellent tool to create any virtual environments with their specific properties, whose purpose could be any training scenarios regarding spatial orientation. If training scenarios in VR should take place in sports, further analyzes with active movements or interactions with objects have to be done, that VR emerges as a valid training method.
Objective excyclotorsion increases with aging in adults
Published in Strabismus, 2022
Akihiko Oohira
In this study, the right-eye DFA was significantly smaller than the left-eye DFA. This difference mainly came from the increase of left-eye DFA in the older participants (Figure 1, Table 1). Another report showed the same laterality: right-eye DFA was 2.2° smaller than left-eye DFA.4 Eye dominance (fixation preference) is known to affect DFA in paretic and nonparetic strabismus.10–14 DFA of the dominant eye is found to be smaller than that of nondominant eye in these cases of strabismus.10–13 The dominant-eye DFA was smaller than the nondominant-eye DFA of group III in our study, too (Figure 2). The vertical axis of the dominant eye is less inclined than the vertical axis of the nondominant eye of these individuals. A human’s most important sense of spatial orientation may be the direction of gravity. Therefore, the dominant eye is likely to be aligned more accurately with the earth’s vertical (i.e., a smaller DFA) than the non-dominant eye. The prevalence of right-eye dominance over left-eye dominance ranges from 2:1 to 3:1 in healthy people.22–24 This distribution bias may have caused this laterality (right- < left-eye) in DFA.
Effect of Dual Task on Step Variability during Stepping in Place without Vision
Published in Journal of Motor Behavior, 2022
Nicole Paquet, Nadia Polskaia, Lucas Michaud, Yves Lajoie
The ability to stay in place while stepping without vision is recognized as a spatial orientation test (Cohen, 2019). Spatial orientation tasks are known to involve a complex integration of sensory, motor and cognitive functions (Trullier et al., 1997; Wolbers & Hegarty, 2010). At present, not much is known on the impact of dividing attention between a cognitive task and the spatial orientation task of stepping in place without vision. Furthermore, it is unclear whether a concurrent cognitive task would produce DT interference and modify the variability of foot displacement parameters during stepping in place without vision. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of a concurrent mental counting task on the variability of step-by-step AP and ML foot displacement and foot rotation intervals. We hypothesized that the variability of these spatial stepping parameters would be smaller in DT than in the single stepping task, according to the previous finding that step length and step width’ variability was smaller in DT than in single walking (Decker et al., 2016).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Animal
- Perception
- Proprioception
- Skeleton
- Vestibular System
- Visual System
- Brain
- Balance
- Sensory Nervous System
- Vestibulo–Ocular Reflex