Effect of obstacle depth and height on step-over behavior: Focus on age-related changes

IF 1.6 3区心理学 Q4 NEUROSCIENCES

Human Movement Science Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.humov.2025.103323

Ryota Sakurai , Yuka Miura , Kentaro Kodama

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Obstacle avoidance during locomotion is a crucial motor skill, especially in environments with uneven terrain. However, the combined effects of obstacle dimensions and aging on this ability remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether the action of stepping over an obstacle changes proportionally with obstacle size and how these movements evolve with age. We recruited fourteen young participants and fourteen older participants. Participants were instructed to step over an obstacle placed five meters away under nine different conditions with varying obstacle dimensions. The smallest obstacle had dimensions of 5 cm × 5 cm (height × depth), and both height and depth were increased by 5 cm increments to reach the largest obstacle size of 15 cm × 15 cm, resulting in three levels each of depth and height conditions. An analysis of variance on the leading-foot clearance revealed significant interactions between height and depth, demonstrating a height-dependent depth effect on clearance, independent of age. Furthermore, significant interactions between height and age were observed for the heel-obstacle distance, which refers to the landing position after stepping over the obstacle. This indicates that older adults consistently landed closer to the same position at each obstacle height, whereas the landing positions of young adults moved farther away as the obstacle height increased. Our findings suggest that although both young and older adults can immediately scale the dimensions of the obstacle and consistently adjust their leading-foot movement accordingly, the landing movements of older adults follow an inflexible strategy that could potentially be riskier.

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来源期刊

Human Movement Science 医学-神经科学

CiteScore

3.80

自引率

4.80%

发文量

审稿时长

42 days

期刊介绍： Human Movement Science provides a medium for publishing disciplinary and multidisciplinary studies on human movement. It brings together psychological, biomechanical and neurophysiological research on the control, organization and learning of human movement, including the perceptual support of movement. The overarching goal of the journal is to publish articles that help advance theoretical understanding of the control and organization of human movement, as well as changes therein as a function of development, learning and rehabilitation. The nature of the research reported may vary from fundamental theoretical or empirical studies to more applied studies in the fields of, for example, sport, dance and rehabilitation with the proviso that all studies have a distinct theoretical bearing. Also, reviews and meta-studies advancing the understanding of human movement are welcome. These aims and scope imply that purely descriptive studies are not acceptable, while methodological articles are only acceptable if the methodology in question opens up new vistas in understanding the control and organization of human movement. The same holds for articles on exercise physiology, which in general are not supported, unless they speak to the control and organization of human movement. In general, it is required that the theoretical message of articles published in Human Movement Science is, to a certain extent, innovative and not dismissible as just "more of the same."