Mobility is an integral part of many daily activities. Problems that affect a person's mobility can significantly impact lifestyle, independence, work and social life, and overall health. More often than not, walking from one place to another involves avoiding obstacles and dealing with uneven or slippery surfaces. In this project, the investigators will study how people walk through complex terrain, such as a cluttered room, a city street, or a backwoods trail, while maintaining biomechanical stability and energetic efficiency. The findings may help health-care practitioners better anticipate the complex consequences of visual and motor impairments for the many daily activities that involve walking and decide which specific aspects of visual and locomotor capabilities need to be improved to prevent trips, slips, and falls. The research also has implications for the development of biologically inspired walking robots.
The primary objective of the project is to understand how people use visual information to adapt walking to the upcoming terrain and take advantage of forces that are generated during walking to enhance stability and energetic efficiency. The experiments are designed to determine why visual information about certain areas of the upcoming terrain must be available at certain times, why people choose one place to step rather than another when more than one option exists, and how people rapidly adapt to sudden, unexpected changes in the position of a desired foothold. The findings from these experiments will inform the development of theory that synthesizes research from robotics, biomechanics, and vision science, and will lead to a principled understanding of how people achieve high levels of energetic efficiency and stability while walking over complex terrain.
