Postural Correlates of Pollution Perception

Abstract

In our contemporary societies, environmental issues are more and more important. An increasing number of studies explore the biological processes involved in environment perception and in particular try to highlight the mechanisms underlying the perception of environmental scenes by our brain. The main objective of the present study was to establish whether the visualization of clean and polluted environmental scenes would lead to differential postural reactions. Our hypothesis was based on a differential postural modulation that could be recorded when the subject is confronted with images representing a “polluted” environment, differential modulation which has been reported in previous studies in response to painful-scenes compared to non-painful scenes visualization.Thirty-one subjects participated in this study. Physiological measurements [heart rate variability (HRV) and electrodermal activity] and postural responses (Center Of Pression—COP—displacements) were recorded in response to perception of polluted or clean environmental scenes. We show, for the first time, that images representing polluted scenes evoke a weaker approach movement than images representing clean scenes. The displacement of the COP in the anteroposterior axis reflects an avoidance when subjects visualize “polluted” scenes. Our results demonstrate a clear distinction between “clean” and “polluted” environments according to the postural change they induce, correlated with the ratings of pleasure and approach evoked by images.

Posturography Approaches: An Insightful Window to Explore the Role of the Brain in Socio-Affective Processes

“…This review provides an overview of the state of knowledge surrounding the interaction between postural responses and socioemotional processes, highlighting as a canonical example result obtained in a very interesting functional context, i.e., painful stimulus perception. Although an interesting functional context, it seems also interesting to broaden the range of functional contexts in which posturography is used with other motivational contexts (alcohol and erotic incentives; [52,53]) or more societal ones (pollution perception; [23]). The over-representation of studies using COP displacement compared to other biomechanical models is likely due to the simplicity and ease of use of this type of measurement.…”

“…This study was limited to the subjective evaluation of approach and avoidance behaviors based on participants' verbal responses towards the scenes presented. Interestingly, Akounach et al [23] attempted to overcome this limitation by adopting static posturography as an objective measure of this behavior. It appeared that the perception of polluted environments was associated with a lower tendency to approach, compared to clean environments, which could potentially be interpreted as avoidance reactions.…”