• Question: Why are we unable to walk straight and tend to lose our balance when we walk with our eyes closed?

    Asked by khughes08 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      We actually don’t – blind people walk straight and don’t loose balance (balance is linked to our ears). What might happens is that if you are used to use your eyes, the sudden removal of one of your senses might affect your confidence and ability to walk and balance 😉

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hi khughes08

      To walk straight we normally need a visual reference point that the brain uses to maintain movement. If we close our eyes, we loose that mechanism so most of us will have trouble walking straight.

      If we concentrate, we can still walk in a straight line by using the balance sense mechanism in our inner ear and the help of our the sensations we derive from our muscles, joints and ligaments.

      Have you tried concentrating and test if you can use those 2 other ways to walk straight?

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      When you walk in a line, your brain takes a visual point as uses it as a reference to keep moving in a straight line. Without this visual point, your brain can’t figure out the exact direction your body’s moving so its hard to walk a straight line.

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      This is due to reference points. As we walk along normally we will take a reference point of where we want to go, then by keeping our eyes open our brain is able to balance us and lead us to that reference point. When we close our eyes though the brain is unable to take a reference point and without that point it becomes disorientated and if your like me you fall down and go “ouch”.

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I’m sure there’s a joke in here somewhere about not walking with your eyes closed, the blind leading the blind etc etc……

      I’m no expert in this area but all of our sense are linked, particularly our eyes, ears and nose(that’s why you sometimes get a sore throat when you get a cold). The brain uses input from all of these sensors to enable us to balance so by closing your eyes myou’re restricting the amount of information that the brain can use to control your muscles etc to enable you to balance. It’s probably why you get that really strange sensation when you’re in a stationary car or train and an adjacent one starts to move – for a split second it feels like you’re moving aswell!

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