Obesity is linked to impaired sensorimotor synchronization during walking but not tapping

Figures

• 

  Fig. 1. Interaction of group and phase shift for each task on relaxation time (b). Relaxation time (b) is plotted as a function of phase shift (+π/2 = phase delay; –π/2 = phase advance), separately for walking and finger tapping. Lines represent groups (normal weight vs. obese), points indicate mean values, and error bars show 95% confidence intervals.

• 

  Fig. 2. Illustrative examples of relaxation time following auditory phase perturbations in an obese and a normal weight participant. This figure displays the evolution of relative phase over time for two representative participants: one from the obesity group (a) and one from the normal weight group (b), in response to two metronome phase perturbations. Each colored line represents a single trial; the thick red line indicates the exponential fit used to compute the relaxation time. (a) Relative phases of the trials of a participant with obesity for the two phase perturbations: (left) +π /2, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathrm{y}\left(\mathrm{t}\right)=2.1 \cdot {\mathrm{e}}^{-0.5\mathrm{t}}$$\end{document}; (right) -π /2, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathrm{y}\left(\mathrm{t}\right)=-1.3…

• 

  Fig. 3. Illustration of the two types of metronome perturbations over time. Vertical lines represent the metronome beats. The red line indicates the beat at the moment of the phase shift, while the dotted grey line marks the expected timing of the beat had no perturbation occurred. This visualization highlights the temporal displacement introduced by either an advance (−π/2) or delay (+π/2) in the auditory sequence.

• 

  Fig. 4. Representation of the relative phase between two periodic systems. The circle illustrates the angular difference between a reference signal (grey dot, e.g., metronome beat) and a response signal (red dot, e.g., heel strike). Positive values (e.g., +π/2) indicate that the response occurs after the reference; negative values (e.g., –π/2) indicate it occurs before. This circular representation provides an intuitive way to visualize temporal alignment in sensorimotor synchronization tasks.