Recently, several studies on human standing posture and body sway have been reported. Many factors influencing human posture have been studied by many investigators.
The present study aims at elucidating the influence of visual conditions on body sway.
The sway of the center of gravity produced by 5 types of visual conditions (with unfixed visual focus, with eyes focused 50 cm. or 1 m. straight ahead, with eyes closed and with eyes blindfolded) was examined in 38 normal subjects.
1) Sway area and shifting length with eyes closed and with eyes blindfolded were similar.
2) The sway area with eyes focused 50 cm. ahead was significantly smaller than that with unfixed focus or eyes focused 1 m ahead. The shifting length was similar under all three visual contitions.