On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data
Typically, animal locomotion studies involve consecutive strides, which are frequently assumed to be independent with parameters that do not vary across strides. This assumption is often not tested. However, failing in particular to account for dependence across strides may cause an incorrect estima...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
2023-08-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230597 |
| _version_ | 1797738919046938624 |
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| author | Alessandro Maria Selvitella Kathleen Lois Foster |
| author_facet | Alessandro Maria Selvitella Kathleen Lois Foster |
| author_sort | Alessandro Maria Selvitella |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Typically, animal locomotion studies involve consecutive strides, which are frequently assumed to be independent with parameters that do not vary across strides. This assumption is often not tested. However, failing in particular to account for dependence across strides may cause an incorrect estimate of the uncertainty of the measurements and thereby lead to either missing (overestimating variance) or over-evaluating (underestimating variance) biological signals. In turn, this impacts replicability of the results because variability is accounted for differently across experiments. In this paper, we analyse the changes of a couple of measures of human leg stiffness across strides during running experiments, using a publicly available dataset. A major finding of this analysis is that the time series of these measurements of stiffness show autocorrelation even at large lags and so there is dependence between individual strides, even when separated by many intervening strides. Our results question the practice in biomechanics research of using each stride as an independent observation or of sub-selecting strides at small lags. Following the outcome of our analysis, we strongly recommend caution in doing so without first confirming the independence of the measurements across strides and without confirming that sub-selection does not produce spurious results. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T13:49:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-349cc45a50944debb05ae29a102c2516 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T13:49:47Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-349cc45a50944debb05ae29a102c25162023-08-23T07:05:18ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032023-08-0110810.1098/rsos.230597On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion dataAlessandro Maria Selvitella0Kathleen Lois Foster1Department of Mathematical Sciences, Purdue University Fort Wayne, 2101 East Coliseum Boulevard, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USANSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Northwestern University, 2200 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208, USATypically, animal locomotion studies involve consecutive strides, which are frequently assumed to be independent with parameters that do not vary across strides. This assumption is often not tested. However, failing in particular to account for dependence across strides may cause an incorrect estimate of the uncertainty of the measurements and thereby lead to either missing (overestimating variance) or over-evaluating (underestimating variance) biological signals. In turn, this impacts replicability of the results because variability is accounted for differently across experiments. In this paper, we analyse the changes of a couple of measures of human leg stiffness across strides during running experiments, using a publicly available dataset. A major finding of this analysis is that the time series of these measurements of stiffness show autocorrelation even at large lags and so there is dependence between individual strides, even when separated by many intervening strides. Our results question the practice in biomechanics research of using each stride as an independent observation or of sub-selecting strides at small lags. Following the outcome of our analysis, we strongly recommend caution in doing so without first confirming the independence of the measurements across strides and without confirming that sub-selection does not produce spurious results.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230597biomechanicskinematic and kinetic datamulti-stride dependence structurevariabilityleg stiffnessrunning |
| spellingShingle | Alessandro Maria Selvitella Kathleen Lois Foster On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data Royal Society Open Science biomechanics kinematic and kinetic data multi-stride dependence structure variability leg stiffness running |
| title | On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| title_full | On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| title_fullStr | On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| title_full_unstemmed | On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| title_short | On the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| title_sort | on the variability and dependence of human leg stiffness across strides during running and some consequences for the analysis of locomotion data |
| topic | biomechanics kinematic and kinetic data multi-stride dependence structure variability leg stiffness running |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230597 |
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