Optic flow is calibrated to walking effort

Jonathan R. Zadra, Dennis R. Proffitt

Through experience, people learn that a given magnitude of walking produces an associated magnitude of optic flow. Artificially altering this relationship has both behavioral and perceptual consequences: walking on a treadmill results in zero translational optic flow and causes people to subsequently drift forward when attempting to walk in place while blindfolded (they have learned that forward walking is required to remain stationary). Similarly, after walking on a treadmill people perceive the walking distance to targets to be greater (they have recalibrated the magnitude of walking required to reach the target). While the measurement unit for walking magnitude in this relationship has been treated as walking speed (stride length * [steps / time]), recent experiments suggest that walkable distances may instead be measured in bioenergetic units (i.e., the magnitude of energy required to produce a given magnitude of optic flow). In the first experiment, zero translational optic flow was paired with a constant walking speed, and walking energy was manipulated by varying the incline of the treadmill. Participants who walked on an inclined treadmill drifted farther while attempting to walk in place than participants who walked on a flat treadmill. A follow-up experiment presented optic flow via an immersive virtual environment, and no difference between flat and inclined treadmill walking was found, thereby showing that the effect found in the first experiment was not an artifact of biomechanical differences associated with flat versus inclined treadmill walking. The results support the hypothesis that walking magnitude is scaled by bioenergetic units.