Effects of room tilting on body sway: Adaptation and strategies for maintaining a standing posture

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a tilting room on body sway across a series of trials. Sixteen subjects were instructed to maintain an upright position in the tilting room, and their body sway was measured by a force plate. After the experimental session, subjects were interviewed about awareness, strategies and impressions. The results indicated that the forward-tilting room induced forward body sway, as would a moving room. The center of gravity in the pre-tilting period in the first trial was significantly more forward than in the following trials. From the analysis of strategy, subjects were divided into two groups: maintaining-standing strategy group and other-strategies group. While subjects who used the maintaining-standing strategy swayed more in the first trial, they had significantly reduced their body sway compared with the other group by the ninth and tenth trials. Based on these results, the effects of a moving room for adult subjects as related to the context-dependent weighting of new inputs are discussed. © 1999 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.