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"Although it's not necessarily a random phenomenon," he says, "we

Feb. 26, 2018 by Kimberly Parks

"Although it's not necessarily a random phenomenon," he says, "we could take a closer look at this behaviour in a simple manner and see whether it has any biological basis."

How did it even occur to you?

The paper, which was published in the journal Science, explores how people have managed to move their entire bodies in such a manner. "The more they move, the more they move," says Joshi, "they can get stuck in a kind of motion that doesn't always correspond exactly with the way they are moving. We want to understand how they can change how they walk."

The researchers tested the model on the Thames itself, and found that the problem was easily solved. If everyone took a different walk (not a common mistake), then people could be at an increased risk of shaking, and those who stayed behind would be more likely to notice the problem, as a result. However, the problem is more general, and it's not just about the way people walk; it's about how they are doing things.

The researchers explain that, instead of "doing something to fix somebody's bad posture," what they found is to make people "do something to fix something in their own position." If an object of a certain kind moves in a different way, for example, people could start to do something to keep things at that position, which would also increase the chance of being shaken. As the authors point out, "this could also mean that there will be more people doing something to keep their feet moving."

To further explore how this works, the researchers measured the sway of the city's streets—a sign of "movement speed" in our cities.  They found that when pedestrians walk faster than the average pace, the amount of movement they make is significantly more likely to be caused by the motion than by the object in question.

"This is the first time we've found that people can be at a higher risk of shaking due to the way they are walking," says Joshi. For the study, the team used a computer model of pedestrians on the Thames, to test the theory of how people could learn to do something to change the way they walk, or to fix something. It's a big step in the right direction, and it may lead to "a whole new way of thinking about why people act so differently."

In a next stage of the study, the team is currently analyzing how people actually behave on the Thames. "We're going to do a lot more work