What makes it so difficult to walk on a fixed escalator?

“This is much more difficult than climbing stairs.” Teen girls complain in TikTok video They are climbing a broken escalator. What makes this so difficult?

“A silent elevator sure has more appeal,” one person commented below the video. Nah, it won't be. Then Google it again.

“Broken escalator” seems to be a term used frequently, also in scientific articles. But it's not about the difficulty of climbing, it's about another phenomenon: that you often lose your balance for a moment when you step on a fixed escalator. Or turn off again.

Psychologist Brian Simpson Written already in 1992 About what he called the “escalator effect.” According to him, this is due to false expectations: “We are so accustomed to being pushed forward by an escalator, that our brains automatically compensate for and cancel out the expected sensation with a kind of conditioned mental reaction.”

Psychology and motor skills

The psychological effect, an illusion, only happens in your brain. No, Oxford neurologists concluded in 2003 Some experiments. It is a combination of psychology and motor skills. Usually you unconsciously compensate for the forward motion of the escalator by stepping on it with a little extra speed. But now you are stepping on a fixed escalator. You see it's still stationary, so you know you're not going to be pulled forward, but you're still automatically compensating for that anticipated movement. That's why you still get on the elevator a little faster. Too fast for a steady stride. You get shocked and compensate with the muscles in your upper body and legs. This is a strange feeling.

Frank Zall, a sports scientist at UMC Groningen, is investigating the interaction between perception and movement. “What I find very interesting is how people control their movements based on incoming information, and vice versa, how your movements also influence that incoming information,” he says.

As an example he mentions catching a baseball while running. You and the ball move together, and as a result of both movements, the image on your retina changes. You can automatically adjust your movements so that you can catch the ball. “Very cool actually. At the end of the day, your brain doesn't have a theoretical model of the ball's trajectory and air resistance.

The calibration is no longer correct

So there is a complex interplay between what you see, expect and feel physically – often unconsciously. “I think something similar also happens when climbing a fixed escalator,” says Zaal. “That reminds me 1995 study Where people walked on a treadmill pulled by a tractor. After that, their calibration of speeds and distances was no longer correct.

This also makes it plausible that climbing a fixed escalator seems more difficult: after all, you gain less height on each step than you expect. “It may also have to do with the wrong step height,” Zaal says. “I think these steps are basically designed to move as best as they can in this rotational mechanism. Not at the ideal step height. And what is the ideal step height?” Nice studies have also been published on this topic. Your ideal step height depends on your leg length, so it varies from person to person, at your discretion 1984 study. Others Saw connection With eye level. People seemed unable to climb stairs properly with blocks under their feet. But after a while these people get used to it. This is the mentioned calibration.”

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