Van Emmerik receives $975,000 grant from the Navy Health Research Center

Richard E.A. van Emmerik, Professor of Kinesiology, has been awarded a 2.5-year, $975,000 grant from the Navy Health Research Center for a research project titled “Effects of Armor and Load on Action-Perception Coupling.” The grant supports a joint research effort through the U.S. Department of Defense to examine the consequences of soldier load and armor on the ability to perceive and act in critical situations related to survivability in combat.

The funding extends efforts to understand the issue of soldier load in the research of doctoral candidate Christopher Palmer, ‘95G, and the fundamental research areas of Dr. van Emmerik within the Sensory-Motor Control Laboratory. Department of Kinesiology doctoral students Luis Rosado and Mike Busa also contributed to the development of the project and will work as Research Assistants on the funded research.

The project examines the relationships between the requirement to carry protective equipment and the ability to move and perceive efficiently and accurately within specified task performances, seeking an optimal relationship between the two that provides the best opportunity for soldiers to return safely home to their families. This work provides fundamental insight into the consequences of personal protective equipment on postural control, dynamic visual acuity, and information pick-up during locomotion tasks and precision performance.

This research is the first of its kind, extending many of the basic theoretical perspectives in Kinesiology and Ecological Psychology to applied problems related to soldiers in combat. The initial goals of the effort are to provide insight into the relations that allow soldiers to survive in realistic situations, and provide an empirically-based model capable of comparing the consequences of different load configurations on soldier survivability.

The research applicability extends to fire fighters, rescue workers, and others who must be protected from environmental threats in a way that restricts their movement and encapsulates them in equipment that reduces their perceptual and movement capabilities (e.g., helmets, backpack loads, etc). Findings of this research will be available to the manufacturers of safety equipment, allowing them to design improved personal protective equipment that considers the “wearer,” and not just the materials technology.