Real-Time Optical Motion Capture Balance Sonification System

In this study, we explored the effects of a motion capture-based real-time sonified biofeedback system on balance. We present the initial efforts towards developing a task-independent optical motion capture based real-time balance sonification system. Five healthy young adults (two female; 24 ± 2.65 years) stood on one foot before and during listening to sonified biofeedback that expressed information in real-time about the state of their balance. In two of five participants, interacting with our sonified biofeedback system resulted in increased "Margin of Stability", a metric indicative of how well the body center of mass is supported by a person's stance. This result indicates our system's initial promise towards training balance strategies. Qualitatively, the participants who increased the Margin of Stability during sonification reported enjoying the experience more and were more aware of changes in their behavior, compared to those who did not increase their Margin of Stability. We also learned that our sonification system has design elements that are incompatible with the stationary tasks in the present study, which will inform our next iteration of sonification design. Future work will examine sonifying balance in dynamic balance tasks, with the goal of aiding clinical balance training.