Investigation of static balance performance in different acoustic stimuli presented with cognitive task in healthy individuals

This study uses postural sway alterations to evaluate the effect of concurrent auditory stimuli and cognitive activity on attention and task performance. The study included 54 individuals aged 19 to 24. Participants were divided into three groups based on whether they would be provided with acoustic stimuli in a silent (control), loud, or musical environment. As a cognitive task, participants were shown incongruent stimuli from the Stroop color-word test. One group took the cognitive test without any auditory stimuli, another group heard Mozart's Jupiter, and a third group heard multitalker babble noise with a signal-to-noise ratio of 7 dB. Acoustic stimuli were delivered using headphones, with the volume set to 70 dBSPL at maximum amplitude to prevent exceeding the acceptable hearing level. A computerized static posturography device was used to assess postural control for the eyes-open firm surface and eyes-open foam surface conditions of the Modified Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction in Balance. In silent, the Stroop task significantly increased postural sway velocity on firm and foam surfaces (p<0.05) compared to the no-task condition. All groups showed significantly higher sway velocity on foam surfaces compared to firm surfaces (p<0.05). Postural sway velocity differed between the three groups only on the firm surface, difference was found only between the noise-control groups. Postural sway was significantly decreased during the cognitive task in the noisy environment (p<0.05). No significant difference was observed between music-noise and music-control groups. There was no significant difference in Stroop mean response time between the three groups or between the group's surface circumstances (p>0.05). This study emphasizes the importance of audio inputs in multitasking scenarios that we encounter in everyday life. In future investigations, the diversification of factors and dynamic situations will help to generalize the findings to everyday life and develop novel rehabilitation approaches.