| The problem addressed by this study was whether trends of balancing performance would be distinguished by levels of perceptual complexity. It was expected that three levels of kinesthetic and three levels of visual complexity would be represented by different patterns of performance change over eight trials. The three levels of visual complexity were full vision, rearranged vision and no vision. Three balance tasks, representing three levels of kinesthetic complexity, were the beam walk, the hopping pattern and the dynabalometer. Thirty adult males served as subjects.;Secondary results obtained in this study were concerned with the order of mean balance performance by visual condition. The order of dynabalometer performance, from best to poorest, was: full vision, rearranged vision, no vision. Performance on the beam walking task in the no vision condition was significantly superior to performance in the rearranged vision condition (p < .05). This difference in the orders of mean performance for the two tasks appears to have resulted from an interaction with a second factor.;Through Keppel's orthogonal polynomial formulation, significant linear trends were identified for all task conditions. Other trends of performance were identified, but did not conform to a meaningful pattern for interpretation. The original hypothesis, that trends of performance would reflect the levels of perceptual complexities of the tasks, was not supported by the analysis of trend procedure. Graphic comparisons of performance on the sigma scale, however, suggested that there were differences in performance change. These findings were discussed in relation to open and closed loop theories of motor performance. |
