RESUMO
Psychological studies of "priming" effects document that covertly presented stimuli can influence behavior without participant awareness. We examined whether nonconscious priming can influence walking velocity on an instrumented walkway. Fifty-nine healthy participants were randomly assigned to unscramble sentences and answer self-concept questions containing words related to either the concepts elderly/passive or youthful/active. Walking velocity was measured before and after this priming manipulation. An ANOVA revealed a significant Group×Time interaction; the elderly/passive group showed a decrease in walking velocity over time while the youthful/active group showed an increase. None of the participants expressed any awareness of the study purpose and the experimenter was blind to group assignment. These results suggest that spoken or written material received by patients prior to gait assessments (such as casual conversations or written health inventories) might influence walking performance outside of client or clinician awareness.
