Postural sway in the moving room scenario: New evidence for functional dissociation between self-motion perception and postural control

Postural control in quiet standing is often explained by a reflexive response to optical flow, the apparent motion of environmental objects in a visual scene. However, moving room experiments show that even small-amplitude body sway can evoke odd sensations or motion sickness, indicating that a consciousness factor may also be involved. Studies targeting perception of self-motion, vection, typically use rapid visual stimuli moving in a single direction to maintain a constant feeling of vection, and there are few studies of vection using low-speed sinusoidal visual stimuli similar to human pendular movement. In the present study we searched for changes in postural control during periods of vection during quiet standing. Participants (N = 19, age = 20.4 ±1.1 years) were shown dynamic visual stimuli in the form of sinusoidally expanding and contracting random dots, and the stimuli speed and visual field were manipulated. Posture was continually evaluated using Center of Pressure (CoP) measurements. Participants were also asked to report feelings of vection, both by pressing a button during the trial and through an overall rating at the end of each trial. Using repeated-measures ANOVA, we assessed changes in the CoP and vection variables between experimental conditions, as well as possible interactions between the variables. The results show that postural reaction and vection were both affected by the visual stimuli and varied with speed. The peripheral visual field was found to couple to stronger feeling of vection and better quality of postural control. However, no significant relationship between postural control and vection, nor evidence of vection interaction to the relationship between optical flow and postural control, was found. Based on our results we conclude that for postural stability during quiet standing, visual cues dominate over any potential consciousness factor arising due to vection.