Principles of human multisensory integration, gaze control, and locomotion, which may guide the design of humanoids

By Alain Berthoz
Professor at Collège de France, LPPA-CNRS.

In humans the control of posture, goal oriented movement, and trajectory formation, during locomotion is possible through a number of neural mechanisms which have been studied by our laboratory.

  1. The top-down control of locomotion from the stabilised head which creates a mobile reference frame. This allows us to be free from a constant reference to the ground.
  2. Gaze anticipates the head and body for the generation of locomotor trajectories. It can be used to anchor the head reference frame on enviromental landmarks.
  3. Optimisation principles subserve the generation of locomotor trajectories.
  4. Similar principles subserve the control of hand movements and locomotion.

About the speaker


Alain Berthoz is currently Professor at the Collège de France, member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europae, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other Academies (Belgium, Bulgaria). He is the deputy Director of the Laboratory of Physiology of Perception and Action of CNRS. He is an Engineer, Psychologist, and Neurophysiologist and has done his career at the CNRS as a scientist in the field of Cognitive Neuroscience.

He obtained a first doctoral degree with a thesis in biomechanics on the effect of vibrations of the human body. After a stay in the US, during which he trained in Neuroscience, he received a second doctoral degree with a thesis on vestibular and oculomotor mechanisms and created a multidisciplinary laboratory in which the roblems of gaze control, equilibrium, arm movement control, multi-sensory perception, adaptive mechanisms in sensory-motor systems, and spatial memory for navigation were studied with methods including neuronal recording in animals brains, biomechanics, mathematical modeling, and psychophysics in humans.

He authored more than 250 papers in international journals and several books including "The Brain's Sense of Movement" (Harvard University Press, 2002), "Emotion and Reason. The Cognitive Foundation of Decision Making" (Oxford University Press, 2006), "Physiology of Action and Phenomenology" (with J.L. Petit, Oxford University Press, 2008) and "La simplexité" (O. Jacob, 2009).