Gaze and Gait: How Motor Learning and Concussive Injury Change Where We Look and Our Visual Reliance

Cates, Alexander Thomas

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-dbmw-wd03

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Gaze and Gait: How Motor Learning and Concussive Injury Change Where We Look and Our Visual Reliance

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Visual information plays a critical role in controlling movement. People use visual information to plan future actions and correct current actions through feedforward and feedback processes, respectively. We can gain insights into these visually guided motor control processes by quantifying where people look during movement and measuring how much they rely on different pieces of visual information. Researchers have established that the visual information people collect and their reliance on the collected information changes based on their surrounding environment and capacity to move (e.g., motor skill level or injury). My thesis expands on this knowledge by examining how where-we-look (i.e., fixation distance) and visual reliance changes throughout the motor learning process; first with an online motor learning task and then with practice of a precision stepping task. My research clearly demonstrates that fixation distance increases with practice. In contrast, changes in visual reliance are dependent on the task being performed. Additionally, my research suggests that changes in visual reliance are a consequence of changing motor skill. I then apply this approach to examine whether individuals who have recently been medically cleared from a concussion exhibit altered collection of and reliance upon visual information (gaze behavior). While my research does not find significant visual changes during walking following the concussion, it does find persistent postural balance and oculomotor deficits. Together, these results provide new information about how gaze behavior changes with motor learning and following a concussion. Outcomes from this dissertation may be valuable for informing gaze-based intervention practices and for further exploring why individuals post-concussion exhibit persistent gait deficits.

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