Relationships Between Accuracy in Predicting Direction of Gravitational Vertical and Academic Performance and Physical Fitness in Schoolchildren.

Enhanced levels of cardio-respiratory fitness (CRF) and physical activity (PA) are both positively associated with health and academic outcomes, but less is known about the spatial processing and perceptual components of PA. Perception of vertical (PV) is a spatial orientation ability that is important for PA, and is usually measured as relative accuracy in aligning an object to gravitational vertical against a tilted background. However, evidence is inconclusive regarding the relationship of PV to educational outcomes - most importantly, numeracy.

Contribution of interaction torques during dart throwing: Differences between novices and experts.

We examined if experts and novices show different utilization of the torque components impulses during dart throwing. Participants threw darts continuously at a dartboard aiming for the centre (target bull's eye). The upper-limb joint torque impulses were obtained through inverse dynamics with anthropometric and motion capture data as input.

Sport Skill-Specific Expertise Biases Sensory Integration for Spatial Referencing and Postural Control.

The authors asked how sport expertise modulates visual field dependence and sensory reweighting for controlling posture. Experienced soccer athletes, ballet dancers, and nonathletes performed (a) a Rod and Frame test and (b) a 100-s bipedal stance task during which vision and proprioception were successively or concurrently disrupted in 20-s blocks. Postural adaptation was assessed in the mean center of pressure displacement, root mean square of center of pressure velocity and ankle muscles integrated electromyography activity.

Regularity of Center of Pressure Trajectories in Expert Gymnasts during Bipedal Closed-Eyes Quiet Standing.

We compared postural control of expert gymnasts (G) to that of non-gymnasts (NG) during bipedal closed-eyes quiet standing using conventional and nonlinear dynamical measures of center of foot pressure (COP) trajectories. Earlier findings based on COP classical variables showed that gymnasts exhibited a better control of postural balance but only in demanding stances. We examined whether the effect of expertise in Gymnastic can be uncovered in less demanding stances, from the analysis of the dynamic patterns of COP trajectories.

Center of pressure based segment inertial parameters validation.

By proposing efficient methods for estimating Body Segment Inertial Parameters' (BSIP) estimation and validating them with a force plate, it is possible to improve the inverse dynamic computations that are necessary in multiple research areas. Until today a variety of studies have been conducted to improve BSIP estimation but to our knowledge a real validation has never been completely successful. In this paper, we propose a validation method using both kinematic and kinetic parameters (contact forces) gathered from optical motion capture system and a force plate respectively.