Journal of Motor Behavior

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Effects of A Dual-Task Intervention in Postural

Control and Cognitive Performance in Adolescents

Pilar Bustillo-Casero, Sara Cebrian-Bou, Carlos Cruz-Montecinos, Alberto

Pardo & Xavier García-Massó

To cite this article: Pilar Bustillo-Casero, Sara Cebrian-Bou, Carlos Cruz-Montecinos,

Alberto Pardo & Xavier García-Massó (2019): Effects of A Dual-Task Intervention in Postural
Control and Cognitive Performance in Adolescents, Journal of Motor Behavior, DOI:
10.1080/00222895.2019.1600467

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00222895.2019.1600467

Published online: 15 Apr 2019.

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 Journal of Motor Behavior, 2019
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Effects of A Dual-Task Intervention in Postural Control and
Cognitive Performance in Adolescents
Pilar Bustillo-Caseroa, Sara Cebrian-Boua, Carlos Cruz-Montecinosb,c
Garc
ıa-Masso
a,e
a
Department of Teaching of Musical, Visual and Corporal Expression, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
b
Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. cLaboratory of Biomechanics
and Kinesiology, San Jose
Hospital, Santiago, Chile. dDepartment of Physical and Sports Education, University of
Valencia, Valencia, Spain. eHuman Movement Analysis Group, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
ABSTRACT. The aim was to assess dual- versus single-task
training for motor performance and cognitive performance in
adolescents. Two experiments were performed. In the first, 30
adolescents were randomized to three groups to determine the
effect of dual-task difficulty on postural control: a-scaling and
root mean square (RMS). In the second, 20 adolescents were
randomized to two groups to determine the effect of dual-task
practice to improve working memory. RMS in the post-test
was lower than the pre-test in both dual-task groups, while
a-scaling was lower in post-test than pre-test only in the high-
difficulty dual-task group. A practice effect was observed on
the percentage of correct answers only in the dual-task group
(p ¼ 0.035). Thus, dual-task training could enhance motor and
cognitive performance more than single-task training.
Keywords: Cognitive load; dual task; motor learning;
postural control
Introduction
elping students with a wide range of abilities to
H learn and refine their motor skills is a challenge for
physical education teachers (Obrusnikova & Rattigan,
2016). However, evidence suggests that developing fun-
damental movement skills (i.e. running, balancing, etc.)
has important health implications for young people
(Lubans, Morgan, Cliff, Barnett, & Okely, 2010) because
people who see themselves as having good motor com-
petence are more likely to be physically active (Hell
ın,
Moreno, & Rodr
ıguez, 2007). In turn, physical activity
has been related to greater academic performance
(Morales et al., 2011; Pellicer-Chenoll et al., 2015). In
the same way, children and adolescents develop cogni-
tive functions and specific competences in school sub-
jects like Maths or Language during the educational
process. In this regard, working memory capacity has
been associated with mathematics or language compre-
hension (Daneman & Merikle, 1996; Raghubar, Barnes,
& Hecht, 2010) and is important in the motor learning
process (Bo, Borza, & Seidler, 2009; Seidler, Bo, &
Anguera, 2012). Therefore, increasing working memory
(and probably other cognitive functions) could increase
students’ academic performance. The effect of targeting
both movement skills and working memory in educa-
tional programmes has so far not been studied in-depth.
1
, Alberto Pardod, Xavier
Balance is the ability to maintain the centre of mass
inside the base of support (Yim-Chiplis & Talbot, 2000).
This aspect of physical education has an inestimable
value for young people’s health and motor competence
(Garc
ıa-Flores, Rivera-Cisneros, S
anchez-Gonz
alez,
Guardado-Mendoza, & Torres-Guti
errez, 2016;
Granacher, Muehlbauer, Gollhofer, Kressig, & Zahner,
2010; Horak, 2006; Maki, Holliday, & Topper, 1994;
Myers et al., 1996; Sherrington et al., 2008; Vellas et al.,
1997). From a health-related point of view, falls are one
of the main causes of unintentional injury in children
(Moorin & Hendrie, 2008) and a major cause of mortal-
ity and morbidity in older adults (Ambrose, Paul, &
Hausdorff, 2013). As balance training effectively reduces
fall rates (Nagy et al., 2007), improving children’s bal-
ance could reduce falls and the associated injuries in this
population. In terms of motor competence, good balance
is necessary for performing complex actions like locomo-
tion (Assaiante, 1998), and it is even important in sports
like soccer and golf, potentially conferring an advantage
in performance (Hrysomallis, 2011). Some authors postu-
late that mechanisms related with postural control (e.g.,
sensorial reweight) reach maturity in children as young
as 6 to 12 years old (Barela, Jeka, & Clark, 2003;
Busquets, Aranda-Garcia, Ferrer-Uris, Marina, &
Angulo-Barroso, 2018; McKay, Wu, & Angulo-Barroso,
2014; Peterson, Christou, & Rosengren, 2006). However,
a recent study found that dual-task postural control does
not reach an adult level until at least 15 or 16 years of
age (Estevan, Gandia, Villarrasa-Sapi~na, Bermejo, &
Garc
ıa-Mass
o, 2018). Thus, postural control in the ner-
vous system matures later than previous studies sug-
gested, prompting the need to incorporate best practices
to improve balance at earlier stages.
Individuals have little awareness that their balance is
typically controlled and coordinated very effectively
during daily activities (Canning, 2005; McNevin &
Wulf, 2002). That is, people maintain their balance (a
postural task) even while performing concurrent phys-
ical and/or cognitive secondary tasks (Cluff, Gharib, &
Correspondence address: Xavier Garc
ıa-Mass
o,
Departamento de Did
actica de la Expresi
on Musical, Pl
astica
y Corporal., Av. Dels Tarongers, 4 (46022), Valencia, Spain.
E-mail: xavier.garcia@uv.es
P. BUSTILLO-CASERO ET AL.
Balasubramaniam, 2010). This situation is known as a
dual-task paradigm. Several studies have investigated
interference or performance reduction in primary and
secondary activities during the execution of a dual-task
(Mehdizadeh et al., 2015; Patel & Bhatt, 2015; Reilly,
van Donkelaar, Saavedra, & Woollacott, 2008; Stins,
Ledebt, Emck, Van Dokkum, & Beek, 2009; Vuillerme
& Vincent, 2006; Weaver, Janzen, Adkin, & Tokuno,
2012). Three theories have been proposed to explain
dual-task interference in both tasks when performed
simultaneously. The first theory is the cross-domain
competition model. This postulates that the tasks com-
pete for attentional resources (Lacour, Bernard-
Demanze, & Dumitrescu, 2008), making both less effi-
cient than in a single-task situation. The second theory is
the U-shaped nonlinear interaction model. This suggests a
U-shaped relationship between the task demands (Lacour
et al., 2008), meaning that depending on whether the cog-
nitive demand of the secondary task is low or high, motor
performance can be either improved or diminished.
Finally, the task prioritisation model posits that adaptive
responses to age-related declines lead to compensatory
behaviours or strategies like task prioritisation (Lacour
et al., 2008). Its main prediction is that older adults priori-
tise motor performance (i.e., postural stability) at the
expense of cognitive performance in dual-tasking (Lacour
et al., 2008).
Regarding dual-task training or motor practice, recent
studies have pointed out that a limited number of ses-
sions practicing dual tasks could increase motor per-
formance more effectively than sessions using a single
task (Goh, Lee, & Fisher, 2013; Goh, Sullivan, Gordon,
Wulf, & Winstein, 2012; Roche et al., 2007).
Silsupadol et al. (2009) studied 23 older adults with
balance impairment, finding that a 4-week training
period (3 sessions per week) using dual-task exercises
was more efficient for improving dual-task performance
than the same training using single tasks. Dual-tasking
could also improve cognitive performance in older
adults, regardless of whether they are cognitively
impaired (Delbroek, Vermeylen, & Spildooren, 2017;
Falbo, Condello, Capranica, Forte, & Pesce, 2016), as
well as in people with multiple sclerosis (Sosnoff et al.,
2017). Another study that targeted a complex pattern of
bimanual coordination through dual-tasks, which was
carried out in women (mean age 23 years) found that
dual-task training affected early motor performance due
to competition for the same neural resources (R
emy,
Wenderoth, Lipkens, & Swinnen, 2010). In children and
adolescents, Torres-Oviedo, Vasudevan, Malone, &
Bastian (2011) found that when training consists only
of changing the walking pattern, there is adaptation, but
retention worsens; however, dual-task training results in
slower adaptation but improved retention. Finally, more
improvements in postural control were found using
2 Journal of Motor Behavior
dual-tasks compared to single-tasks in children with
spastic hemiparesis (Elhinidi, Ismaeel, & El-Saeed,
2016). However, there are no studies available on using
this paradigm to enhance cognitive functions in educa-
tional programmes in children or adolescents.
Thus, evidence on motor performance and cognitive
function enhancement by dual-task practice is scant and
mostly limited to elderly and/or injured populations
(Ghai, Ghai, & Effenberg, 2017), so determining the
effect of dual-tasking on motor and cognitive perform-
ance enhancement in children and adolescents needs fur-
ther consideration. This information could be used in
schools to improve motor learning in physical education
lessons. Other subjects could also use this paradigm to
increase cognitive functions or specific skills. The aim of
this study was to assess the effect of dual-task practice
on motor performance and cognitive functions in
adolescents.
Experiment 1
This randomised control trial aimed to compare the
effect of easy and hard dual-task practice versus single-
task practice for increasing postural task performance in
adolescents. Thirty participants were randomised into
three groups: a control group (CG; n ¼ 10) that practiced
a single postural task, another group that trained by
doing an easy dual-task (EDTG; n ¼ 10) and a third
group that carried out a hard-cognitive task (HDTG;
n ¼ 10). All participants performed a pre-test, practice
session, post-test and retention test with a single-task
postural control test, using a Wii Balance Board (WBB)
on a balance platform.
Method
Participants
Prior to recruitment, sample size was calculated using
GPower 3.1 (University of D€usseldorf, D€usseldorf,
Germany). A sample size of 9 per group was required
to reach a statistical power of 0.95 and an a-level of
0.05 with an estimated effect size of 1.25, based on pre-
vious data (Pellecchia, 2005). Thirty 13- and 14-year-
old adolescents (14 males and 16 female) volunteered
for the study. They were randomised to one of the three
groups (n ¼ 10 each). Inclusion criteria were: i) no prior
experience with the experimental task, ii) 13 or 14 years
old, and iii) no motor control or neural pathology that
could affect balance. Table 1 shows participant
characteristics.
The Institutional Review Board of the University of
Valencia approved the study protocol. Parents/guardians
of the participants provided signed, informed consent
before the tests, and participants gave their assent orally.
 DUAL-TASK AND MOTOR PERFORMANCE

Wedderkopp, 2014). The data were acquired using

TABLE 1. Subjects’ characteristics of WiiLab software (University of Colorado, Boulder, Co,
experiment 1. USA) for Matlab R2007 (Mathworks Inc, Natick, MA,
USA). Data signals were recorded at a frequency
Variable CG EDTG HDTG of 40 Hz.
Gender
Male 3 6 4 Data Analysis
Female 7 4 6 CoP displacement signals in the medialateral direction
Age (years) 13.1 (0.32) 13.1 (0.32) 13.1 (0.32)
were filtered digitally by a Butterworth low-pass filter
Weight (kg) 54.9 (10.19) 56.8 (14.11) 62.2 (11.76)
Height (m) 1.59 (0.08) 1.62 (1.06) 1.64 (0.59)
with a 12 Hz cut-off frequency. Regarding the spatial
BMI (kgm–2) 21.84 (4.26) 21.59 (4.74) 23.21 (4.11) magnitude of sway, we calculated the root mean square
BMIPercentile 68.9 (23.05) 65.60 (25.3) 78.1 (23.87) (RMS) in the medialateral direction using equations pro-
posed previously (Prieto, Myklebust, Hoffmann, Lovett,
Note. Data are expressed as mean (standard deviation). & Myklebust, 1996). We also assessed temporal sway
BMI ¼ body mass index. dynamics using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA).
The a-scaling exponent in the medialateral direction was
computed as a dependent variable in an inferential ana-
Procedure lysis. This variable provides information on long-range
All the participants were evaluated at their schools on autocorrelation in the signal (Lin, Seol, Nussbaum, &
two consecutive days. On the first day, they performed a Madigan, 2008). Busa, Ducharme, & Van Emmerik
pre-test, practice session and post-test. They took the (2016) have suggested that a-scaling exponent values
retention test 24 hours later. In the pre-test, post-test and close to 1 are representative of adaptive changes, while
retention tests, the participants only performed a single changes of the a-scaling exponent to values higher than
postural task. This task consisted of maintaining a stabi- 1.6 are representative of maladaptive strategies.
logram (with instability in the medialateral direction) as Therefore, a change close to 1 could indicate adaptive
horizontal as possible during three, 30-s trials (with 30 learning of the task based on the use of a non-predictable
to 60 s rest in between). A reference point was placed at pattern to perform the task, showing a higher adaptability
eye level at 2 m directly in front of the participant. A to the instantaneous conditions.
WBB was placed on the stabilogram to assess centre of
pressure (CoP) displacement; participants were asked to Statistical Analysis
stand on the WBB with their feet shoulder distance apart, SPSS software, version 21 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL,
moving their arms freely to increase stability. USA) was used for the statistical analysis. As the
The intervention consisted of performing a dual-task Shapiro-Wilk test indicated that some variables did not
(EDTG or HDTG) or single task (CG) activity during comply with the normality assumption, we used non-
12, 30-s trials (with 30–60 s rest in between). EDTG and parametric tests, obtaining the median and inter-quartile
HDTG participants performed a cognitive task at the range values by standard statistical methods.
same time as the postural task, while the CG carried out Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied to establish the
the postural task only. The cognitive task consisted of a effects of the group on the dependent variables in pre-
backward digit spam test. EDTG participants performed test, post-test and retention time points. By means of
four sequences of three digits in each 30-s trial, while Friedman’s ANOVAs, we analysed the effect of the
the HDTG completed the same task but with three interventions on the postural control of each group.
sequences of five digits per trial. After each sequence Follow-up assessments used Dunn’s pairwise compari-
appeared on the computer screen at eye level 2 m in sons with Bonferroni correction (two comparisons: pre-
front of the adolescents, they had to repeat the numbers test versus post-test and pre-test versus retention). A p-
value of 0.05 was accepted as the threshold for signifi-
in reverse order. In the EDTG, participants were able to
cance in all statistical analyses.
correctly recite 95.89% of the numbers [95% confidence
interval (CI) 94.5–97.29], compared to 80.23% (95% CI
Results
77.24 – 83.23) in the HDTG.
The Kruskal–Wallis test showed that there were no
Postural Control Measurement differences between the groups in the a-scaling exponent
CoP signals were acquired from a WBB. The WBB or RMS at any time point. Regarding the effect of the
has been validated as an appropriate tool to analyse intervention, no significant differences were observed in
standing postural control in both adults (Clark et al., the CG between any time points in the a-scaling expo-
2010; Koslucher et al., 2012; Park & Lee, 2014) and nent (v22 ¼ 2.60; p ¼ 0.273) or RMS (v22 ¼ 3.80;
children (Larsen, Jørgensen, Junge, Juul-Kristensen, & p ¼ 0.150). In the EDTG, RMS differed according to

3
P. BUSTILLO-CASERO ET AL.

FIGURE 1. Pairwise comparisons of pre-test, post-test and retention test on the postural control variables. A shows the results
of the control group, B the data for the easy dual-task group and C the results for the hard dual-task group. RMS ¼ root mean
square.  indicates significant differences regarding pre-test (p < 0.05).

time point (v22 ¼ 8.60; p ¼ 0.014), but the a-scaling

exponent did not (v22 ¼ 5.4; p ¼ 0.07). Pairwise compar- TABLE 2. Subjects’ characteristics of
isons showed lower RMS at post-test than at pre-test experiment 2.
(z ¼ 2.91; p ¼ 0.008; r ¼ 0.65), although there were no
differences between pre-test and retention. In the HDTG, Variable STG DTG
there was a significant difference in the a-scaling expo- Gender
nent (v22 ¼ 11.4; p ¼ 0.003) and RMS (v22 ¼ 7.20; Male 4 4
p ¼ 0.027) according to time point, and pairwise com- Female 6 6
Age (years) 13.3 (0.48) 13.1 (0.32)
parison showed that the a-scaling exponent (z ¼ 3.35;
Weight (kg) 49.9 (9.75) 53.98 (6.92)
p ¼ 0.002; r ¼ 0.75) and RMS (z ¼ 2.68; p ¼ 0.014; Height (m) 1.65 (0.07) 1.65 (0.08)
r ¼ 0.6) variables were lower at post-test than at pre-test. BMI (kgm–2) 18.33(3.64) 19.87 (1.95)
There were no differences between pre-test and retention BMIPercentile 39.3 (35.26) 61.4 (21.06)
time points in RMS or the a-scaling exponent in the
Note. Data are expressed as mean (standard deviation).
HDTG. Figure 1 shows the median and inter-quartile
BMI ¼ body mass index.
range associated with these comparisons.

Experiment 2
This randomised controlled trial aimed to assess the
effect of single- versus dual-task practice on cognitive
performance in adolescents. Twenty participants were
divided into two groups using a random sampling
method: a single cognitive task group (STG, n ¼ 10), and
a dual-task training group (DTG, n ¼ 10). All participants
performed a pre-test, practice session, post-test, and
retention test.
Method
Participants
Twenty adolescents volunteered to participate in this
study (12 girls and 8 boys). Inclusion criteria were: i) no
prior experience with the experimental task, ii) 13 or
14 years old, and iii) no motor control or neural path-
ology that could affect balance. Table 2 shows partici-
pant characteristics.

4 Journal of Motor Behavior


TABLE 3. Effect of practice on working memory.
STG
Variable
Pre-test Post-test
Correct answers (number) 12.17 (2.91) 13.83 (2.33)
Correct answers (%) 81.17 (19.67) 92.17 (15.33)
Note. Data are expressed as median (interquartile range).
Significant differences regarding pre-test (p < 0.05).
The Institutional Review Board of the University of
Valencia approved the study protocol. Parents/guardians
of the participants provided signed, informed consent
before the tests, and participants gave their assent orally.
Procedure
All the participants were evaluated at their schools on
two consecutive days. On the first day, they performed a
pre-test, practice session and post-test. They took the
retention test 24 h later. The pre-test, post-test and reten-
tion assessments consisted of a single cognitive task in
three, 30-second trials (with 30–60 s rest in between).
Participants had to memorise the sequences of numbers
and then repeat them in reverse order (i.e., backward
digit spam test). The intervention consisted of twelve,
30-s trials in which the teens performed the same cogni-
tive task. Both groups performed three sequences of five
digits in each 30-s trial. The STG only carried out the
cognitive task, while the DTG performed a cognitive
task and postural task concurrently. In the postural con-
trol task, participants had to keep a stabilogram (instabil-
ity in the medialateral direction) as horizontal
as possible.
Working Memory Measurement
Data for the cognitive task were acquired using open-
source software; the numbers appeared on the computer
screen, and then participants had to type them in reverse
order on the keyboard. During the DTG practice session,
adolescents performed the postural task at the same time
as the cognitive task, repeating the numbers out loud so
the researcher could type them on the keyboard. During
the pre-test, post-test and retention assessments, the par-
ticipants of both groups typed the numbers directly on
the keyboard.
Assessment results were saved on a file, with the
absolute and relative frequencies of correct answers serv-
ing as a measure of task performance.
Statistical Analysis
SPSS software, version 21 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL,
USA) was used for the statistical analysis. As the
Shapiro–Wilk test indicated that some variables did not
comply with the normality assumption, we used non-
DUAL-TASK AND MOTOR PERFORMANCE
DTG
Retention Pre-test Post-test Retention
13.67 (1.33) 12.83 (1.67) 13.5 (2.75) 14.17 (2.67)
91.17 (8.92) 85.67 (11.25) 90.17 (18.33) 94.33 (17.58)
parametric tests. The Mann–Whitney U-test was applied
to compare the number and percentage of correct
answers between groups at pre-test, post-test and reten-
tion time points, individually. Two Friedman’s ANOVAs
were performed to establish the effect of the intervention
on cognitive performance in both groups individually.
Follow-up assessments used Dunn’s pairwise compari-
sons with Bonferroni correction (two comparisons: pre-
test versus post-test and pre-test versus retention). A p
value of 0.05 was accepted as the threshold for signifi-
cance in all statistical analyses.
Results
The Mann-Whitney U-test test did not yield significant
differences between the groups either on the absolute or
relative frequency of correct answers during pre-test,
post-test and retention assessments. Friedman’s
ANOVAs showed an effect for the intervention on the
number of correct answers both in the STG (v22 ¼ 7;
p ¼ 0.03) and DTG (v22 ¼ 6.06; p ¼ 0.048). However,
pairwise comparisons did not show significant differen-
ces in the number of correct answers between pre-test
and post-test or between pre-test and retention assess-
ments in either group. The intervention did show an
effect on the percentage of correct answers in the DTG
(v22 ¼ 6.69; p ¼ 0.035) but not in the STG (v22 ¼ 4.27;
p ¼ 0.12). Pairwise comparisons (Table 3) showed that
the DTG obtained a higher percentage of correct answers
at the retention assessment than at the pre-test time
point (p ¼ 0.038).
General Discussion
The findings on cognitive and postural control per-
formance enhancement obtained in this study provide
important evidence that dual-task practice could be more
effective for improving balance and working memory
than single postural tasks in adolescents. After a single
training session, the HDTG and EDTG improved their
performance in the postural task in the post-test,
although this improvement was not retained. Thus, the
HDTG and EDTG showed motor adaptation during the
postural task, but not permanent changes. However, the
5
P. BUSTILLO-CASERO ET AL.
CG did not make any progress in practice without the
cognitive task. Furthermore, the DTG showed better per-
formance in the working memory task in the retention
test than in the pre-test. Our results suggest that dual-
task practice could be effective in enhancing both motor
and cognitive skills in adolescents.
A second finding is that the more difficult the cogni-
tive task, the higher the postural task adaptation seems to
be. In this regard, a difficult cognitive task (i.e., five dig-
its in the spam test) significantly reduced RMS and the
a-scaling exponent at the post-test assessment, while
EDTG improved only RMS. High-difficulty dual-tasks
are thus recommended to improve motor adaptation.
Our first finding corroborates the results of other stud-
ies (e.g., Goh et al., 2012, 2013; Roche et al., 2007;
Silsupadol et al., 2009), which found that dual-tasks are
more effective for increasing motor performance than
single tasks. However, these studies used dual-tasks in
the elderly, the ill or adults rather than in adolescents.
Differences in postural control during different life stages
(i.e., childhood-adolescence, adulthood and old age)
(Hyt€ onen, Pyykk€ o, Aalto, & Starck, 1993) could mean
that some motor learning techniques are more effective
at improving postural control in some of these periods
than others. The results obtained in the present study
suggest that dual-tasks could be more effective than sin-
gle tasks for improving motor performance in
adolescents.
Regarding the effect of dual-task difficulty on motor
performance enhancement, Roche et al., (2007) showed
that high-difficulty dual-task conditions improve the pri-
mary motor task more than easy dual-task conditions.
Goh et al. (2012) tested two different hypotheses regard-
ing the characteristics of the dual-task required to
enhance motor performance. The first was the difficulty
hypothesis, supported by the results of Roche et al.
(2007). According to this hypothesis, high-difficulty
dual-tasks are required to improve motor tasks. The
second was the similarity hypothesis, which postulates
that dual-tasking enhances motor performance when both
tasks use similar processes; their results support this
hypothesis. The authors recommend carrying out dual-
tasks in which the secondary activity involves similar
processes as the primary motor task to improve the per-
formance of the primary action.
In this study, we used a complex primary motor task
and a cognitive task involving working memory. Some
studies have found that working memory is involved in
the performance and learning of motor skills such as bal-
ance (Dault, Frank, & Allard, 2001; Seidler et al., 2012).
Therefore, our tasks could use similar processes, as sug-
gested by Goh et al., (2012). Using the same cognitive
task in the EDTG and HDTG, our results support the dif-
ficulty hypothesis, since the HDTG showed improvement
on the same day in both RMS and the a-scaling
6 Journal of Motor Behavior
exponent, while the EDTG improved only in RMS.
Thus, a high-difficulty secondary task increases cognitive
demands when practicing a motor skill, which is related
to enhanced motor performance (Lee, Swinnen, &
Serrien, 1994). The cross-domain competition model
could also explain the improvement in motor perform-
ance when practicing with dual-tasks. This model affirms
that when two tasks are performed at the same time,
they compete for attention, diminishing the performance
of both (Lacour et al., 2008). Previously published
results support this model in adolescents (Palluel,
Nougier, & Olivier, 2010). In our study, a dual-task was
performed during training where tasks are continuously
competing for attention. Later, when the participants per-
formed the single postural task in the post-test assess-
ment, their performance improved considerably, as there
was no other task to compete for attentional resources.
Another possible mechanism involved in the dual-task
effect on motor learning could be related to the neural
activation facilitated by the secondary task (Goh et al.,
2013). Previous studies have reported that when the sec-
ondary task activates the same neuronal regions as the
primary task, this facilitates activation, resulting in
higher motor learning (Goh et al., 2013). Moreover,
Rietschel et al. (2012) found that neural activation is cor-
related with the difficulty of the dual-task, so the more
difficult the dual-task is during practice, the more active
the neuronal areas required to perform the tasks are,
which probably also leads to higher motor learning.
These findings suggest that a common neural circuit can
be the underlying mechanism for dual-task performance
(Goh et al., 2013).
Finally, the results of the second experiment suggest
that dual-task practice could enhance cognitive perform-
ance more than practicing single tasks. The fact that par-
ticipants performed better in the retention test than in the
pre-test indicates a considerable improvement.
Nevertheless, there were no differences between the pre-
test and post-test assessments. This could be attributed to
the time-on-task performance decline described in the lit-
erature (Kirchner & Knopf, 1974; Lim et al., 2010;
Szalma et al., 2004). That is, engagement in the cogni-
tive task during the training session reduces participants’
cognitive performance (due to fatigue), masking the
actual training effect. This result could serve as a basis
for strategies facilitating the learning of processes that
involve the working memory (i.e., maths or languages)
in adolescents.
Both the cognitive and postural performance results
during dual-task training could be used to extract prac-
tical applications for physical education teachers and
other educators. First, to improve motor skills, it would
be more appropriate to apply dual-tasks instead of single
tasks. In this regard, cognitive tasks could be added as a
secondary activity to improve the conditions for

enhancing motor performance and carrying out interdis-
ciplinary learning projects. The secondary task should be
difficult enough to increase the cognitive demands of the
task as well as to require a high degree of attention.
This study has several limitations. First, we tested the
hypothesis with only one day of cognitive and balance
training; the effect of dual-task training could be
enhanced with additional sessions. The relatively small
sample size could also be responsible for the lack of
motor task improvement in the retention test.
Furthermore, the retention results were evaluated at
24 hours after training, so the long-term effects of train-
ing (i.e., months later) are still unknown. In addition, the
assessment included the medio-lateral direction but not
anterior-posterior displacement, and the experiments
included only 13- and 14-year-olds. Future studies that
assess the transfer between both axes and include other
age groups would be desirable. More research will also
be necessary to confirm these results in a more eco-
logical environment.
To conclude, motor performance in adolescents could
be enhanced by practicing dual-tasking instead of single-
task training. The difficulty of the secondary task is an
important factor facilitating learning; the greater the dif-
ficulty of the secondary task, the greater the motor per-
formance enhancement. Finally, adolescents’ working
memory capacity could also be enhanced by practicing
dual-tasks.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Jos
e Francisco Garc
ıa Moreno
for providing the stabilometer used in this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by
the authors.
ORCID
Carlos Cruz-Montecinos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-
3835-3368
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Received March 20, 2018
Revised January 25, 2019
Accepted February 26, 2019