Does dynamic balance affect cube mental rotation task in badminton vs. volleyball female players?

Changing from a static to a dynamic balance condition could affect the performance of a cognitive task such as mental rotation. Thus, the main goal of this study is to investigate aspects of visual-spatial cognition between two non-contact sports (i.e., badminton and volleyball) in different upright conditions (i.e., standing position, frontal balance, and sagittal balance).

Thirty-five volunteer female sports and physical education students, fourteen specialists in badminton and twenty-one specialists in volleyball agreed to participate in this study. Each of the assessments was a 3D cube mental rotation task with and/or without balance exercises (i.e., frontal and/or sagittal balance) on a wobble board. Five stimuli were used in the mental rotation task (i.e., 45°, 135°, 180°, 225° and 315° for objected-based cube condition with egocentric transformation) which included pairs of standard and comparison images.

The findings indicate that there was a notable decrease (p < 0.001; d = 1.745) in response time in both dynamic balance conditions (i.e., frontal and sagittal balance) compared to standing position condition. In addition, results revealed significant interaction between balance conditions (i.e., frontal and/or sagittal balance) and groups (i.e., badminton and volleyball) in the response time at 225° angle and in the error percentage.

In sum, dynamic balance is also an activity that involves mental manipulation of objects in 3D space, which can enhance badminton and volleyball female players' ability to rotate 3D cube stimuli.