Unveiling Intermittency in the Control of Quiet Upright Standing: Beyond Automatic Behavior.

ABSTRACT: The control of posture, as in quiet upright standing, is distributed among postural reflexes and higher (cortical) centers. According to the theory of "intermittent control," the control of posture involves a rapid succession of brief periods of postural stability, during which the body dwells relatively motionless in a particular posture, and postural instability, during which the body rapidly transits to a new stable point. This theory assumes a combination of stiffness control, keeping the body in the same position, and top-down ballistic control, moving the body to a new reference position. We tested the prediction that exerting ballistic control consumes more attention, relative to stiffness control, using variations in reaction time as our index of attention load. Slower reactions to

SUBMITTER: Stins JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6191479 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature