Moving Without Vision: Sensorimotor Adaptation in a Reduced Gravity Environment
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Kim, Hyorim
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Abstract
Vision is one of the most important senses that humans rely on to interact with the world and execute motor tasks. This study aims to determine the extent to which participants can adapt their sensorimotor systems when exposed to a novel environment (i.e., reduced gravity) by comparing conditions where visual feedback is present or absent. Our study compared two groups: a control group with vision available during adaptation and a group without vision (blindfolded) during adaptation. There was no statistically significant difference between the blindfolded and the vision group in jump height, target error, lift/land impulse, and point of subjective equality. The findings suggest that despite the absence of vision, participants in the blindfolded group were able to adapt to the reduced gravity environment and demonstrate comparable aftereffects upon returning to normal gravity. These findings support that the human nervous system relies on multimodal sensory integration involving proprioceptive, vestibular, and somatosensory cues to recalibrate internal models of gravity in response to altered environments.
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2026-05
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Text
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Undergraduate Thesis