Adults with visual impairments experience a loss of balance and mobility, which presents a barrier to independence and is associated with the fear of falling. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which visual status, age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and the strength of quadriceps and hamstrings contribute to compromised…

This study examined and compared the control of posture during bilateral stance in ten boys with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) of 6-8 years old and ten matched typically developing boys in four sensory conditions (with or without vision, on a firm or complaint surface). In all conditions mean postural sway velocity was larger for the…

Autism has been associated with atypical face and configural processing, as indicated by the lack of a face inversion effect (better recognition of upright than inverted faces). We investigated whether such atypical processing was restricted to the face or extended to social information found in body postures. An inversion paradigm compared…

The effects of posture on the visual behavior of 15 3-day-old healthy, black, newborn infants were assessed. Findings suggest that the vestibular, proprioceptive, and contact stimulation provided by the on-shoulder position affects the newborn's ability to follow and process visual stimuli. (Author/CS)

Analyzed postural oscillations in six-, eight-, and 10-year-olds in four visual and two somatosensory conditions. Found that children were more stable with than without vision and more stable with a normal than with an altered support surface. Overall, there was no effect of age. The relative influence of peripheral and central vision on postural…

Like faces, body postures are susceptible to an inversion effect in untrained viewers. The inversion effect may be indicative of configural processing, but what kind of configural processing is used for the recognition of body postures must be specified. The information available in the body stimulus was manipulated. The presence and magnitude of…

Forty-eight neonates were randomly assigned to view a moving stimulus either in the horizontal or the upright position, with or without added vestibular stimulation and with or without pacifier sucking. Results indicate that vestibular proprioceptive stimulation, provided horizontally or semi-vertically, significantly enhanced visual tracking.…

Results of a study of 68 infants of 5-14 months revealed that partial optical flow is generally sufficient for inducing postural compensations, but the amplitude and consistency of the response depend on the location of the flow in the optic array. (RJC)

Compared the postural responsiveness of seven-, eight-, and nine-month-old infants. Results indicated greater use of optic flow for postural control after a self-produced locomotor experience. Infants with endogenous (creeping) or artificial (walker) self-produced locomotor experience responded to portions of the optic flow field, whereas…

This is a discussion of the conservation of angular momentum of the human body engaged in somersaults and twists. The principle is also applied to a cat turning over in midair. The events occur in the absence of torques. Application of the maneuvers are suggested for astronauts. (SA)

The study examined whether people can extract speech related information from the talker's upper face that was presented using either normally textured videos (Experiments 1 and 3) or videos showing only the outlined of the head (Experiments 2 and 4). Experiments 1 and 2 used within- and cross-modal matching tasks. In the within-modal task,…

A research study and the intent and purpose of its experiments are outlined to support the premise that "a change in the color of an environment will bring a change in the pattern of human movement within that environment". Experiment cited is concerned with the color variables of light beige and dark brown in a controlled environment with museum…

Children with cerebral palsy frequently receive therapeutic intervention to remediate standing balance deficits. Evaluation of the impairments associated with poor balance could facilitate more effective treatment programs. This study evaluated the relationship between lower extremity force production, range of motion and standing balance in…