Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2026
The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task
Published on: May 3, 2018
Effects of visual and auditory short-term memory tasks on the spatiotemporal dynamics and variability of postural
M A Riley1, A A Baker, J M Schmit
1Department of Psychology, ML 0376, 429 Dyer Hall, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0376, USA. michael.riley@uc.edu
Abstract:
The authors measured postural sway while participants (N = 20 in each experiment) stood on a rigid or a compliant surface, with their eyes open or closed, and while they did or did not perform a short-term memory (STM) task. In Experiment 1, the STM stimuli were presented visually; in Experiment 2, the stimuli were presented auditorily. In both experiments, fine-scaled, mediolateral postural-sway variability decreased as the cognitive load imposed by the STM task increased. That effect was independent of support surface and vision manipulations. The spatiotemporal profile of postural sway was affected by both visual and auditory STM tasks, but to a greater degree by the auditory task. The authors discuss implications of the results for theories and models of postural control.
