Collision avoidance between two walkers: an understanding of children’s behaviours

Collision avoidance can be described as a whole-body movement control problem in which visual information is used to elicit accurate movement adaptations. Previous research has demonstrated that children lack knowledge about their own action capabilities as well as the ability to use vision to properly guide actions in static environment. Little is known about how children avoid moving objects (i.e., other individuals) in the environment. The purpose of the proposed project is to understand the strategies used by children when avoiding a collision with another child when walking along crossing trajectories. Young adults are able to anticipate the risk of a future collision with another adult and collision avoidance is performed collaboratively. We expect that behaviours produced in the proposed study will not be performed collaboratively because children lack the ability to: 1) anticipate future events; and 2) accurately control their movements with respect to another person when avoiding collisions.

Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Cinelli

Student:

Partner:

Université de Haute Bretagne Rennes 2

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

Wilfrid Laurier University

Program: