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Published on: December 11, 2013
Effects of attentional focus on postural sway in children and adults
Isabelle Olivier1, Estelle Palluel, Vincent Nougier
1Faculté de Médecine, Bâtiment Jean Roget, Laboratoire TIMC-IMAG, UMR CNRS 5525, Equipe Santé, Plasticité, Motricité, Joseph Fourier University, 38706 La Tronche Cedex, France. Isabelle.Olivier@ujf-grenoble.fr
Insights
Children aged 4-11 show less postural sway when focusing attention on balance compared to adults. This suggests developing attentional control benefits postural stability in children.
Area of Science:
- Human motor control
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Postural control is crucial for stability.
- Attentional resources and selective attention processing differ between children and adults.
- Adults' postural stability decreases when attention is directed to postural sway.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine postural control modifications in children (4-11 years) and adults when attention is voluntarily focused on postural sway.
- To test the hypothesis that children's postural stability is less affected than adults' when attention is directed to postural sway.
Main Methods:
- Participants: 44 children (4-11 years) and 11 adults.
- Task: Postural control in Romberg position.
- Conditions: (1) watching a video, (2) fixating a cross while maintaining stability.
- Measurement: Force platform to assess postural performance.
Main Results:
- Postural stability improved non-monotonically in children, not reaching adult levels by age 11.
- Children (4-11 years) demonstrated the ability to focus attention on postural control.
- Automatic postural control enhanced stability from age 4 onwards.
Conclusions:
- Children's developing attentional systems influence postural control differently than in adults.
- Voluntary attention to postural sway impacts children's stability less than adults'.
- Enhanced automatic control of posture contributes to improved stability in children over time.
Abstract:
The present study examined, in children aged 4-11 and in adults, the postural control modifications when attention was oriented voluntary on postural sway. Since (1) there are less attentional resources in children than in adults, (2) the selective attention processing improves with age, i.e., children use a different strategy to focus their attention than adults, and (3) adults' postural stability decreases when attention is focused on postural sway, we hypothesized that postural stability was less affected in children than in adults when attention was focused on postural sway. Fourty four children aged 4- to 11-year-old and 11 adults participated in the experiments. The postural control task was executed in a Romberg position. Two experimental conditions were presented to the subjects, (1) to look at a video on a TV screen without instruction about the posture, and (2) to fixate a cross placed at the center of the TV screen with the instruction to remain as stable as possible. Postural performance was measured by means of a force platform. Results from this study (1) confirmed a non-monotonic improvement of postural stability during the ontogenetic period without reaching the adults' level at the age of 11, (2) suggested that children, aged 4-11, are able to focus their attention on the control of posture, and (3) showed that the automatic control of posture increases postural stability since the age of 4.
