Emotional states affect walking performance

Gait is a large component and indicator of health in both young and older adults. Many factors affect gait including age, disease, and even mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Few studies have looked at the role of emotional states on gait behaviour. This study aimed to investigate the influence of emotional states on walking performance to understand whether an emotional state may be an important factor to consider when evaluating gait. Thirty-six young adults were recruited (23F, 13M) and performed a neutral baseline condition of walking which included six passes of walking across an 8m walkway (a total of 48m of walking). Participants then completed 6 pseudo-randomized emotional state induction conditions while immersive 360-degree videos were used to induce the following emotional state conditions: happiness, excitement, sadness, fear, and anger. Participants viewed the emotion elicitation videos using a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), then rated their emotional state using self-assessment manikins and performed 48m of walking (without the HMD) over a pressure sensor walkway. Results showed that participants walked with significantly reduced step length and gait speed during the sadness condition compared to the other emotion conditions and the neutral condition. Furthermore, participants adjusted the timing of their walking during the sadness condition and walked with significantly increased step, stance, and swing times compared to other emotion conditions, but not the neutral condition. Step time was significantly reduced during the conditions of excitement and fear compared to the neutral condition. Overall, these findings show that in young healthy adults, emotions may impact variety of gait parameters involving pace and rhythm, however have little influence on gait variability and postural control. These results indicate that perhaps the emotions of sadness and excitement should be taken into account as potential confounds for future gait analysis.