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The influence of head and body tilt on human fore-aft translation perception

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Abstract

The tilt–translation ambiguity occurs because acceleration due to translation cannot be differentiated from gravitational acceleration. Head tilt can occur independent of body tilt which further complicates the problem. The tilt–translation ambiguity is examined for fore-aft (surge) translation with head and/or body orientations that are tilted in pitch 10° forward or backward. Eleven human subjects (six female), mean age 40 years participated. Conditions included no tilt (NT), head and body tilt (HBT), head only tilt (HOT), and body only tilt (BOT). The fore-aft stimulus consisted of a 2 s (0.5 Hz) sine wave in acceleration which a maximum peak velocity of 10 cm/s. After each stimulus, the subject reported the direction of motion as forward or backward. Subsequent stimuli were adjusted to determine the point at which subjects were equally likely to report motion in either direction. During the HBT, responses were biased such that upward pitch caused a neutral stimulus to be more likely to be perceived as forward and downward pitch caused the stimulus to be more likely to be perceived as backward. The difference in the point of subjective equality based on the direction of tilt was 3.3 cm/s. During the BOT condition, the bias with respect to the direction of body tilt was in a similar direction with a difference in PSE 1.6 cm/s. During HOT and NT, there was no significant bias on fore-aft perception. These findings demonstrate that body tilt shifts the PSE of fore-aft direction discrimination while head tilt has no influence.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by a grant from the NIDCD (K23 DC011298) with additional support provided by a clinician-scientist grant from the Triological Society. Technical support was provided by Shawn Olmstead-Leahey. The author declares no competing financial interests.

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The author has no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology, University of Rochester, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Box 629, Rochester, NY, 14642, USA

    Benjamin T. Crane

  2. Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Benjamin T. Crane

  3. Department of Bioengineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Benjamin T. Crane

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Correspondence to Benjamin T. Crane.

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Crane, B.T. The influence of head and body tilt on human fore-aft translation perception. Exp Brain Res 232, 3897–3905 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4060-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4060-4

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