The influence of anxiety and attentional focus on visual search during adaptive gait.

Abstract

Research demonstrates the multifaceted influence of fall-related anxiety on postural control. However, very little work has sought to identify psychological mechanisms through which anxiety influences movement planning and jeopardises balance safety. Experiment 1 demonstrates evidence of a causal link between postural threat and altered visual search during adaptive gait, indicative of both increased on-line control of stepping movements (at the expense planning future stepping actions), and a gaze bias towards threats to balance. Participants also reported allocating greater attention towards both conscious movement processing and external threatening stimuli. Experiment 2 sought to further evaluate possible attentional factors underpinning changes observed in Experiment 1. Here, participants completed the same task under conditions of (i) internal focus of attention, and (ii) reduced resources available for movement planning. Similar to when anxious, participants displayed increased on-line control of stepping-at the expense of feedforward planning-when focusing attention 'internally'. However, no such changes were observed during conditions of reduced resources. We consequently interpret altered patterns of visual search observed during anxious gait to represent both a gaze bias towards threats to balance (i.e., increased reliance on the stimulus-driven attentional system) and the subsequent conscious processing of movement to prevent a fall.

Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder Exhibit Greater Stepping Error Despite Similar Gaze Patterns and State Anxiety Levels to Their Typically Developing Peers

“…This results in high-risk older adults, who also report heightened state-anxiety, sometimes looking away too early from the target box they are stepping onto which can result in inaccurate foot placement (Chapman and Hollands, 2006Young and Hollands, 2012a;Young et al, 2012;Young and Williams, 2015). These findings therefore suggest that the increased likelihood of trips and falls in older adults are due, in part, to not looking in the right places at the right times; behavior shown to be directly linked to the effects of anxiety/fear of falling on attentional control processes (Young and Hollands, 2012b;Young and Williams, 2015;Ellmers and Young, 2019). Though it is currently unclear whether falls in older adults and children with DCD share common etiologies, the influence of anxiety on visuomotor control is a mechanism that may explain problems with effective gait in DCD populations.…”

‘Recoupling’ the attentional and motor control of preparatory postural adjustments to overcome freezing of gait in Parkinson’s

“…However, such processes can become detrimental in later stages of learning through the disruption of movement automaticity (i.e., breaking down the automated skill into smaller steps and increasing the chance of producing errors, [ 29 ]). This over-reliance on verbal movement rules, also known as ‘reinvestment’ [ 30 ], is associated with increased cognitive task demands [ 31 ] and a decline in motor performance during gait in healthy young [ 32 ] and older adults [ 33 ], and in a range of sporting, balance, and vocational tasks [ 34 , 35 ].…”

Exploring attentional focus of older adult fallers during heightened postural threat

“…Research also suggests that attempting to consciously process walking/stepping movements may impair movement planning. For example, adopting an internal focus of attention has been shown to reduce proactive visual search during adaptive gait, with individuals fixating on the ground one step ahead at the expense of previewing future stepping constraints approximately four steps ahead (Ellmers & Young, 2019 ). Consequently, Uiga, Capio, Wong, Wilson, and Masters ( 2015 ) propose that such internal focus may increase fall risk by increasing the likelihood that these individuals will miss external information necessary for successful locomotion.…”