Discussion
fatigue
The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of mental fatigue on single and dual static balance in healthy young adults. To achieve this, participants performed both low and high demanding Stroop tasks (Stroop taskBefore the discussion on the effect on balance performance, it is important to discuss the findings relating to the successful induction of mental fatigue in the participants. The performance of both Stroop tasks led to significantly higher feeling of subjective mental fatigue in the participants compared to the control condition. This is in line with the findings of previous mental fatigue studies that showed that prolonged performance of Stroop task causes greater feeling of mental fatigue than watching a documentary or reading a magazine for the same duration (Fletcher and Osler Overall, our results indicate that both Stroop tasks used in our study result in subjective mental fatigue. But there was no evidence of objective mental fatigue (decrease in cognitive performance with time-on-task) in the high demanding Stroop task. This is not divergent from the results of similar previous studies. In a study on the effect of mental fatigue on functional performance tests in healthy young adults, Verschueren et al. (While our results have revealed a successful induction of mental fatigue in the participants, there was no evidence that their static balance performance was negatively affected in this state. There was no significant difference in either single or dual-task balance between the experimental and control conditions post-intervention. Similarly, the concurrent task (counting backward task) performance during the dual task balance assessment was also not affected indicating that mental fatigue does not impair the available attentional resources for static balance control in the participants. This is in line with a recent study that found no significant difference in static balance control under both single and dual task conditions in healthy young adults after 25 min of performing Stroop task or leisurely reading a magazine (Fletcher and Osler In summary, the performance of both high and low demanding Stroop tasks led to significant feeling of mental fatigue in healthy young adults. However, this did not compromise the attentional resources for static balance control evidenced by lack of effect on both balance and concurrent task performance during dual tasking.