Thinking while walking: experienced high-heel walkers flexibly adjust their gait

Abstract

Theories of motor-skill acquisition postulate that attentional demands of motor execution decrease with practice. Hence, motor experts should experience less attentional resource conflict when performing a motor task in their domain of expertise concurrently with a demanding cognitive task. We assessed cognitive and motor performance in high-heel experts and novices who were performing a working memory task while walking in gym shoes or high heels on a treadmill. Surprisingly, neither group showed lower working memory performance when walking than when sitting, irrespective of shoe type. However, high-heel experts adapted walking regularity more flexibly to shoe type and cognitive load than novices, by reducing the variability of time spent in the single-support phase of the gait cycle in high heels when cognitively challenged. We conclude that high-heel expertise is associated with more flexible adjustments of movement patterns. Future research should investigate whether a more demanding walking task (e.g., wearing high heels on uneven surfaces and during gait perturbations) results in expertise-related differences in the simultaneous execution of a cognitive task.

Keywords: cognition; dual-task; expertise; gait; motor skills.

Figure 1

Neither experts nor novices show performance reductions while walking in gym shoes or high heels. Error bars = SE mean.

Figure 2

Variability of walking velocity (coefficient of variation): experts and novices reduce their gait variability under cognitive load, independent of shoe type. Error bars = SE mean.

Figure 3

Variability of time spent in single support (coefficient of variation): high-heel experts flexibly adjust their gait according to cognitive load when wearing high heels, novices show little changes in both shoe types when cognitively challenged. Error bars = SE mean.