Central tendency and serial dependence in vestibular path integration

Sophie C.M.J. Willemsen*, Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes, Robert J. van Beers, Mathieu Koppen, W. Pieter Medendorp

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Path integration, the process of updating one’s position using successive self-motion signals, has previously been studied with visual distance reproduction tasks in which optic flow patterns provide information about traveled distance. These studies have reported that reproduced distances show two types of systematic biases: central tendency and serial dependence. In the present study, we investigated whether these biases are also present in vestibular path integration. Participants were seated on a linear motion platform and performed a distance reproduction task in total darkness. The platform first passively moved the participant a predefined stimulus distance, which they then actively reproduced by steering the platform back the same distance. Stimulus distances were sampled from short- and long-distance probability distributions and presented either in a randomized order or in separate blocks to study the effect of presentation context. Similar to the effects observed in visual path integration, we found that reproduced distances showed an overall positive central tendency effect as well as a positive, attractive serial dependence effect. Furthermore, reproduction behavior was affected by presentation context. These results were mostly consistent with predictions of a Bayesian Kalman filter model, originally proposed for visual path integration.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1481-1493
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Neurophysiology
Volume132
Issue number5
Early online date7 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 the American Physiological Society.

Keywords

  • central tendency
  • distance reproduction
  • path integration
  • serial dependence
  • vestibular system

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