Cite as:
Gomi H, Sakurada T, 2011, "Postural change induced by visual motion triggers an odd sensation frequently experienced at a stopped escalator" Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 89

Postural change induced by visual motion triggers an odd sensation frequently experienced at a stopped escalator

H Gomi, T Sakurada

Many people have had the experience of clumsy movement accompanied by a peculiar sensation when stepping onto a stopped escalator. Previous studies suggested that mismatch caused by implicit motor behaviors (forward body sway and altered leg-landing movement), subconsciously driven by an endogenous motor program for moving escalator, directly induces the odd sensation during stepping onto a stopped escalator. In this study, we investigated whether or not an exogenous postural change elicited by visual motion also induces the odd sensation. When walking into an escalator mock-up, most of subjects reported strong odd sensation in the first few trials, but that sensation exponentially decayed with successive trials. After sufficient number of trials, several types of visual motion were additionally inflicted during their trials. When a body forward-sway was induced by visual motion, they reported a strong odd sensation which was similar to the sensation obtained in the first few trials without visual motion. High odd sensation was also reported when backward-sway was induced, but subjective similarity score decreased significantly. These results indicate that the endogenous motor program is not necessary for inducing odd sensation and suggest that the subconsciously induced motor-behavior itself essentially triggers the stopped-escalator-odd-sensation.

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