[Archive] [09/05/22] Séminaire de John Stins

Postural control: a cognitive perspective.

Postural control refers to a fundamental motor skill that underlies many whole-body movement tasks, such as standing, walking, etc. What these tasks have in common is that the body is orientated vertically, thus acting against the force of gravity. This can only be accomplished by a finely regulated control system that couples sensory information to appropriate motor output. This field of research has traditionally been the domain of biomechanics and (clinical) neurophysiology, but there is increasing recognition that cognitive and affective states also influence this perception-action cycle.

Over the past few years I have conducted a set of experiments that combine basic postural tasks, namely quiet standing and gait initiation, with psychological manipulations. I record postural activity by looking at the center-of-pressure (COP) time series, which results from the ground reaction forces applied by the actor during a task. Interestingly, analysis of the COP profile reveals rich effects of cognition, emotion and attention.

In this presentation I first discuss some theoretical background of postural control and the analysis and interpretation of COP data. I then present and discuss a set of experiments I have performed in my lab.