Dominance of Attention Focus and Its Electroencephalogram Activity in Standing Postural Control in Healthy Young Adults

Attention focus changes performance, and external focus (EF) improves performance compared to internal focus (IF). However, recently, the dominance of attention focus, rather than the effectiveness of unilateral EF, has been examined. Although the positive effects of EF on standing postural control have been reported, the dominance of attention focus has not yet been examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the dominance of attention focus and its neural mechanism in standing postural control using electroencephalography (EEG). A standing postural control task under IF and EF conditions was performed on healthy young men. Gravity center sway and cortical activity simultaneously using a stabilometer and an EEG were measured. Participants were classified into IF-dominant and EF-dominant groups according to their index of postural stability. The EEG was analyzed, and cortical activity in the theta-wave band was compared between the IF-dominant and EF-dominant groups. Significant neural activity was observed in the left parietal lobe of the IF-dominant group in the IF condition, and in the left frontal lobe of the EF-dominant group in the EF condition (p < 0.05). Differences in EEG activity between IF-dominant and EF-dominant groups, in standing postural control, were detected. This contributes to the development of training methods that consider attentional focus dominance in postural control.