Visuomotor coordination in people with nearsightedness: A study on gaze and lower body movement
2022 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesisAlternative title
Visuomotorisk koordination hos personer med närsynthet : En studie om blick och rörelse i underkroppen (Swedish)
Abstract [en]
At least 2.6 billion people all over the world suffer from nearsightedness, among whom 312 million are under 19 years old. Just like other vision problems, uncorrected nearsightedness brings inconvenience to many human daily activities including walking. However, the influence of nearsightedness on gait patterns and gaze behaviours remains barely discovered. This project aimed to study the influence of nearsightedness on human visuomotor coordination in different environmental settings. An integrated system combining motion capture and eye-tracking was implemented for measuring gait and gaze simultaneously. Twelve participants were recruited to perform a protocol consisting of walking tasks in various visual and environmental conditions. Nine of the participants were eligible for data analysis. Gaze time distribution and gait cycle parameters were compared between participant groups (five with normal vision, four nearsighted), and among different walking tasks. Results revealed that comparing with the control group, the nearsighted participants made shorter and slower steps, as well as spent more time looking at the walking path. The walking path also affected the gait and gaze behaviours, with shorter step length and longer step time observed when the participants were walking uphill, while increased gaze attention was paid downhill. The practicality of combining gait analysis with eye-tracking was proved in this project, laying a foundation for future studies of visuomotor coordination.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022. , p. 66
Series
TRITA-CBH-GRU ; 2022:296
Keywords [en]
Visuomotor coordination, gait analysis, gaze behaviour, nearsightedness, motion capture, eye-tracking
National Category
Medical Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-320981OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-320981DiVA, id: diva2:1708398
Subject / course
Medical Engineering
Educational program
Master of Science - Medical Engineering
Supervisors
Examiners
2022-11-062022-11-032022-11-06Bibliographically approved