The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the influence of postural anxiety on the
capacity for Flexible Resource Allocation (FRA) among younger (YA) and older adults
(OA). Two experiments were conducted to explore (a) the influence of heightened
postural anxiety on the flexible allocation of attention among OA and (b) the influence of
concurrent postural challenge and postural anxiety on FRA among YA. Participants
performed a postural task concurrently to a cognitive task according to three instructional
sets directing task priority. Experiment one revealed that FRA was compromised among
OA during circumstances of heightened anxiety. This capacity however, remained
available among YA. Therefore, for the second experiment I varied the support surface to
explore whether the capacity for FRA could be sustained when posture was challenged
beyond static stance. Results indicated that YA altered cognitive task performance
according to instructional set without compromising postural stability. These findings
suggest that even when posture is challenged during heightened postural anxiety, YA
maintain the capacity to automatically allocate attention to a postural task while
performing a secondary task. Conversely, it seems that heightened postural anxiety
strengthens the attentional bias to posture and subsequently compromises FRA among
OA. Overall, results from this thesis suggest that the capacity for FRA is age and
situation dependent. / xi, 107 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:ALU.w.uleth.ca/dspace#10133/2555 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Kempster, Cody C, University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science |
| Contributors | Brown, Lesley |
| Publisher | Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Kinesiology, 2010, Arts and Science, Department of Kinesiology |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Relation | Thesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science) |
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