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Contributions of visual and proprioceptive information to travelled distance estimation during changing sensory congruencies

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Abstract

Recent research has provided evidence that visual and body-based cues (vestibular, proprioceptive and efference copy) are integrated using a weighted linear sum during walking and passive transport. However, little is known about the specific weighting of visual information when combined with proprioceptive inputs alone, in the absence of vestibular information about forward self-motion. Therefore, in this study, participants walked in place on a stationary treadmill while dynamic visual information was updated in real time via a head-mounted display. The task required participants to travel a predefined distance and subsequently match this distance by adjusting an egocentric, in-depth target using a game controller. Travelled distance information was provided either through visual cues alone, proprioceptive cues alone or both cues combined. In the combined cue condition, the relationship between the two cues was manipulated by either changing the visual gain across trials (0.7×, 1.0×, 1.4×; Exp. 1) or the proprioceptive gain across trials (0.7×, 1.0×, 1.4×; Exp. 2). Results demonstrated an overall higher weighting of proprioception over vision. These weights were scaled, however, as a function of which sensory input provided more stable information across trials. Specifically, when visual gain was constantly manipulated, proprioceptive weights were higher than when proprioceptive gain was constantly manipulated. These results therefore reveal interesting characteristics of cue-weighting within the context of unfolding spatio-temporal cue dynamics.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Betty Mohler and Michael Weyel for their technical assistance and Simon Musall for his assistance in collecting the data. The research was supported by funding from the Max Planck Society and by the Brain Korea 21 PLUS Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstr. 38, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Jennifer L. Campos, John S. Butler & Heinrich H. Bülthoff

  2. Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, 550 University Ave., Toronto, ON, M5G 2A2, Canada

    Jennifer L. Campos

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jennifer L. Campos

  4. Trinity Centre for Bioengineering, Trinity Biomedical Science Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

    John S. Butler

  5. Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 136-713, Korea

    Heinrich H. Bülthoff

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  1. Jennifer L. Campos
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Correspondence to Jennifer L. Campos or Heinrich H. Bülthoff.

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Campos, J.L., Butler, J.S. & Bülthoff, H.H. Contributions of visual and proprioceptive information to travelled distance estimation during changing sensory congruencies. Exp Brain Res 232, 3277–3289 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4011-0

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