title: Flexible kinesthetic distance perception: when do your arms tell you how far you have walked?
abstract: Given the flexible organization of locomotion evidenced in the many ways the limbs can be coordinated, the authors explored the potentially correspondingly flexible organization of nonvisual (kinesthetic) distance perception. As kinesthetic distance perception is known to be affected by how the limbs are coordinated, the authors probed the potential perceptual contribution of the arms during locomotion by manipulating arm-leg coordination patterns in blind-walked distance-matching tasks. Whereas manipulation of arm-leg coordination for walking with free-swinging arms had no observable perceptual consequences, comparable manipulation for walking with hiking poles did affect distance matching. These results suggest that under conditions in which the arms act to propel the body (e.g., crawling or stair-climbing) a person's nonvisual sense of movement is conveyed in the coordinated actions of all four limbs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA. steven.john.harrison@gmail.com
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: Nikita
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kuznetsov
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Breheim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001132:Arm / Q000502:physiology*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D004215:Distance Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007699:Kinesthesis / Q000502:physiology*; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*