Author ORCID Identifier

Mangalam - https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6369-0414

Stergiou - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9737-9939

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-24-2023

Abstract

Walking exhibits stride-to-stride variations. Given ongoing perturbations, these variations critically support continuous adaptations between the goal-directed organism and its surroundings. Here, we report that stride-to-stride variations during self-paced overground walking show cascade-like intermittency—stride intervals become uneven because stride intervals of different sizes interact and do not simply balance each other. Moreover, even when synchronizing footfalls with visual cues with variable timing of presentation, asynchrony in the timings of the cue and footfall shows cascade-like intermittency. This evidence conflicts with theories about the sensorimotor control of walking, according to which internal predictive models correct asynchrony in the timings of the cue and footfall from one stride to the next on crossing thresholds leading to the risk of falling. Hence, models of the sensorimotor control of walking must account for stride-to-stride variations beyond the constraints of threshold-dependent predictive internal models.

Comments

This is an open access article license under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290324

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290324

Journal Title

PLOS One

Volume

18

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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