Postural responses of blind adults to a moving room

We evaluated the possibility that there may be functional relations between body sway and audition, as predicted by Stoffregen & Pittenger (1995). The experiments were conducted using blind participants, who could be expected to have an increased sensitivity to any functional relation between postural control and audition. Participants stood in a moving room. Ambient acoustic fields were generated in the room from the font wall and participants postural responses to four conditions (room movement 14 cm, room stationary, stand on floor, stand on low balance beam) were recorded. Results show that the standard deviation of body position in the movement condition was different than the stationary condition (t₍₂₎ = 5.12, p < 0.5). Cross-correlation coefficients calculated to assess the coupling of body sway to room movement did not differ in the balance beam (.984) and floor (.957) conditions. In blind adults, body sway was influenced by motion of the room. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that ambient sound fields can provide information that can be used for the perception and control of bodily orientation (Stoffregen & Pittenger, 1995).