The purpose of this master thesis was to determine whether there is a relationship between choice reaction time and the subjective perception of balance task intensity. The study involved 25 randomly selected, healthy, uninjured adult volunteers, they did not train on a regular basis. During testing, participants performed two simple reaction time tasks (in seated and standing positions), each repeated six times. They also performed six choice reaction time tasks: six repetitions of double-leg stance on soft and hard surfaces, single-leg stance on soft and hard surfaces, and tandem stance on soft and surfaces. The task was dual in nature – participants had to maintain the given balance position while reacting as quickly as possible to a light stimulus by pressing a button. During the balance tasks, a pressure platform was used to measure the velocity of the center of pressure movement and the reaction time to the light signal. After each task, participants provided a subjective rating of difficulty on a scale from 1 to 5. The results of the study showed that reducing the size and stiffness of the support surface in selected balance tasks led to an increase center of pressure (COP) sway velocity and higher subjective ratings of balance task intensity. Despite these changes, there was no increase in the reaction time to the visual stimulus. It has also been proven that there is no statistically significant relationship between the speed of the COP sway fluctuation, the assessment of the intensity of the balance tasks and the duration of the choice reaction time. One possible explanation is that the tasks were likely not sufficiently challenging for healthy adults. Additionally, participants probably distributed their attention between the tasks in different ways, which contributed to high variability in the results and the lack of statistically significant differences and correlations.
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