Postural Reactions to the Sounds of Approaching Footsteps from in Front and Behind in People with Different Perceptive-Cognitive Styles

The field-dependence as perceptual-cognitive style determines the principal modality in space orientation and influences in posture control without distant stimulation. The aim of the work was to analyze stabilometric parameters in groups of field-dependent (FD) and field-independent (FI) subjects to describe postural sway in response to sound signals of a conspecific movement. The stabilograms were recorded for two groups of subjects (12 FD and 12 FI) in standard postures—heels together, toes apart, hands down along the body, eyes closed. The sounds of steps were created on the basis of a pre-recording in a room with reverberation. In free field three types of stimulation were used: steps approaching from behind and from the front; a control signal—a repeated step in place, given from behind. The changes of the center of pressure (CoP) position were analyzed for 64 s with a period of 8 s: before (1), during (3) and after (4) stimulation. The CoP parameters were the shift and the length of CoP trajectory along the sagittal axis, and the area of the confidence ellipse. A slight destabilization of the posture during sound stimulation was shown in both groups of subjects. Differences between the groups were revealed: with the onset of the approaching step sounds the FD-subjects shifted the CoP away from the sounds (the “run” strategy), while the FI subjects shifted the CoP toward the sounds (the “hit” strategy). The results obtained substantiate the possibility to use the conspecific sound stimulation in rehabilitation procedures in the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases taking into account the individual characteristics of perception in patients.