Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Date of Award

12-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Committee Chair

Ashley G. Flagge, Ph.D. and Nicholas Stanley, Ph.D.

Abstract

Previous research has established links between vestibular function and cognitive processing, aging and cognitive function, and aging and vestibular function. Theories of cognitive resource allocation discuss how cognitive resources, such as attention, are devoted towards and divided between tasks when multitasking. This dual-task study, utilizing a balance task and a listening/cognitive task, across the young- and middle-aged adult age range, aimed to evaluate potential relationships between vestibular function, cognition, and age, and to examine how cognitive resources might be allocated under dual-task conditions.

The dual-task protocol in this study utilized an oddball paradigm with tonal stimuli to measure the P300 Event-Related Potential (P300), which is known to be sensitive to age and modulations in attention, as the listening/cognitive task. This task allowed for the representations of the strength and timing of neural resources to be analyzed, using P300 amplitude and latency, respectively. Balance was assessed using the Modified Clinical Test of Sensory Integration in Balance (mCTSIB), which has four conditions of varying difficulty, allowing for the quantification of sway velocity (indicating the speed and stability of the center-of-pressure) during the four conditions. Participants across the age range (18-55 years) completed these two tasks alone, as single tasks, and completed the two tasks simultaneously, as dual-task conditions.

The results of this study revealed that both P300 amplitude and sway velocity in the mCTSIB were significantly impacted in dual-task conditions, while no significant effects were observed for P300 latency or age. Specifically, P300 amplitude was significantly lower in all four dual-task conditions compared to P300 amplitude in the single task/ baseline condition, indicating that less neural resources were available for the cognitive task under dual-task conditions. Conversely, sway velocity in the mCTSIB was significantly lower (improved) in dual-task balance conditions, compared to baseline/single-task conditions. An interaction effect revealed that sway velocity was significantly improved for each of the compliant surface conditions of the mCTSIB (compliant surface, eyes open [CSEO] and compliant surface, eyes closed [CSEC], the two most difficult conditions of the mCTSIB. Taken together, these results seem to suggest some prioritization of the balance task over the listening/cognitive task when the two are performed simultaneously.

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