Publications by authors named "Dovin Kiernan"

Article Synopsis
  • Inertial measurement units (IMUs) can gather extensive running biomechanics data, but their accuracy can be compromised by improper placement or movement during use.
  • A study involving 74 participants tested the impact of misplacing an IMU 0.05 m away from a reference IMU located on the shank, pelvis, or sacrum, measuring how these deviations affect running data.
  • Findings indicated that even small misplacements could cause significant errors in measurements such as peak forces and contact times, emphasizing the importance of correct IMU positioning for reliable biomechanics analysis.
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Twenty-seven methods of estimating vertical ground reaction force first peak, loading rate, second peak, average, and/or time series from a single wearable accelerometer worn on the shank or approximate center of mass during running were compared. Force estimation errors were quantified for 74 participants across different running surfaces, speeds, and foot strike angles and biases, repeatability coefficients, and limits of agreement were modeled with linear mixed effects to quantify the accuracy, reliability, and precision. Several methods accurately and reliably estimated the first peak and loading rate, however, none could do so precisely (the limits of agreement exceeded ±65% of target values).

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We evaluated 18 methods capable of identifying initial contact (IC) and terminal contact (TC) gait events during human running using data from a single wearable sensor on the shank or sacrum. We adapted or created code to automatically execute each method, then applied it to identify gait events from 74 runners across different foot strike angles, surfaces, and speeds. To quantify error, estimated gait events were compared to ground truth events from a time-synchronized force plate.

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Running-related injuries (RRI) may result from accumulated microtrauma caused by combinations of high load magnitudes (vertical ground reaction forces; vGRFs) and numbers (strides). Yet relationships between vGRF and RRI remain unclear - potentially because previous research has largely been constrained to collecting vGRFs in laboratory settings and ignoring relationships between RRI and stride number. In this preliminary proof-of-concept study, we addressed these constraints: Over a 60-day period, each time collegiate athletes (n = 9) ran they wore a hip-mounted activity monitor that collected accelerations throughout the entire run.

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Compared to intact limbs, running-specific prostheses have high resonance non-biologic materials and lack active tissues to damp high frequencies. These differences may lead to ground reaction forces (GRFs) with high frequency content. If so, ubiquitously applying low-pass filters to prosthetic and intact limb GRFs may attenuate veridical high frequency content and mask important and ecologically valid data from prostheses.

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It is widely held that discrete goal-directed eye movements (saccades) are ballistic in nature because their durations are too short to allow for sensory-based online correction. Recent studies, however, have provided evidence that saccadic endpoints can be mediated via online corrections. Specifically, it has been reported that saccade trajectories adapt to the eccentricity of an unexpectedly perturbed target location (i.

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Surround inhibition is a neural mechanism hypothesized to facilitate goal-directed action by disinhibiting agonist muscle activity while simultaneously inhibiting antagonist and other uninvolved muscle activity. The present study was designed to investigate if abnormalities in surround inhibition are found in asymptomatic body parts (the hand) of people with focal cervical dystonia (neck). Participants with (n=7) and without (n=17) cervical dystonia completed a protocol in which they abducted their index finger while EMG was recorded from the first dorsal interosseous (agonist) and abductor digiti minimi (uninvolved) muscles.

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Adam, Mol, Pratt, and Fischer (2006) reported what they termed "a violation of Fitts's Law" - when participants aimed to targets in an array, movement times (MTs) to the last target location (highest index of difficulty (ID)) were shorter than predicted by Fitts's Law. Based on the results of subsequent studies in which placeholders were present either during planning and/or execution stages of the movements, it was suggested that the violation may emerge because of context-dependent changes in planning processes. The present study examined this planning explanation by conducting detailed kinematic analyses of movements.

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Numerous studies have revealed that when people sit next to each other and complete separate parts of a Simon task, response times are shorter when the participants' stimulus appears in front of them than when the stimulus appears in the opposite side of space. According to the action co-representation account of this joint Simon effect (JSE), participants represent each other's responses and the compatibility effects emerge because of a set of facilitatory and inhibitory processes that are similar to those that are activated when individuals perform the entire Simon task alone. D.

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The joint Simon effect (JSE) is a spatial-compatibility effect that emerges when two people complete complementary components of a Simon task. In typical JSE studies, two participants sit beside each other and perform go-no-go tasks in which they respond to one of two stimuli by pressing a button. According to the action co-representation account, JSEs emerge because each participant represents their partner's response in addition to their own, causing the same conflicts in processing that would occur if an individual responded to both stimuli (i.

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