The visual guidance of locomotion over complex terrain

机动性是许多日常活动不可或缺的一部分。影响一个人行动能力的问题会严重影响生活方式、独立性、工作和社交生活，以及整体健康。通常情况下，从一个地方走到另一个地方需要避开障碍物，处理不平整或光滑的表面。在这个项目中，研究人员将研究人们如何在复杂的地形中行走，比如杂乱的房间、城市街道或偏僻的小路，同时保持生物力学的稳定性和能量效率。研究结果可以帮助医疗保健从业者更好地预测视觉和运动障碍对许多日常活动（包括步行）的复杂后果，并决定视觉和运动能力的哪些具体方面需要改善，以防止绊倒、滑倒和跌倒。这项研究也对仿生行走机器人的发展有启示意义。该项目的主要目标是了解人们如何使用视觉信息来适应即将到来的地形，并利用行走过程中产生的力量来增强稳定性和能量效率。这些实验的目的是确定为什么在特定的时间必须获得关于即将到来的地形的特定区域的视觉信息，为什么当存在多个选择时，人们会选择一个地方而不是另一个地方，以及人们如何迅速适应期望的立足点位置的突然、意外变化。这些实验的发现将为机器人、生物力学和视觉科学综合研究的理论发展提供信息，并将对人类在复杂地形上行走时如何实现高水平的能量效率和稳定性产生原则性的理解。

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.