White Noise and Postural Control in Healthy Adults: Differential Effects in Virtual and Non- Virtual Environments
This study reveals that while stationary white noise has minimal overall impact on postural control in healthy adults, its individual effects vary significantly between non-virtual and virtual reality environments, with a tendency toward stabilization in non-VR settings and destabilization in VR settings.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of a preprint that has not been peer-reviewed. It is not medical advice. Do not make health decisions based on this content. Read full disclaimer
Every moment we stand still, our bodies are engaged in a quiet, constant negotiation with gravity. To keep from falling, the brain acts as a master integrator, gathering reports from three main sources: the eyes, which tell us where we are in relation to the world; the inner ear and skin, which sense motion and pressure; and the muscles and joints, which feel the ground beneath our feet. Usually, these systems work together seamlessly, but when one source becomes unreliable—like when we close our eyes or stand on a soft, uneven surface—the brain must quickly adjust, leaning more heavily on the remaining senses to maintain balance. For decades, scientists have understood how vision and touch shape this process, but a quieter sense has recently come under scrutiny: hearing. While we often think of sound as something we listen to, researchers have begun to wonder if the mere presence of a steady, unchanging noise might act as a hidden anchor, helping the brain orient itself in space, much like a lighthouse beam helps a ship navigate a dark sea.
A team of researchers at New York University set out to test this idea, asking a simple but complex question: does a constant hum of white noise help healthy adults stand steadier, or does it distract them? They were particularly interested in whether the answer changed depending on where the person was standing. Would the effect be different in a quiet, real-world room compared to a fully immersive virtual reality environment that simulates a busy, moving subway station? To find out, they recruited twenty-five healthy adults, ranging in age from their early twenties to mid-thirties, and asked them to stand with their feet together on a soft, foam pad. This soft surface was chosen specifically to make the task harder by reducing the reliable signals coming from the feet, forcing the brain to work harder to stay upright.
The participants performed two different sets of tests. In the first, they stood in a real room, either with their eyes open or closed. During these trials, they either listened to a steady stream of white noise played through loudspeakers or wore noise-canceling headphones that blocked out all sound. In the second set of tests, they wore a virtual reality headset that placed them in a digital subway station. Sometimes the scene was still, and sometimes it was dynamic, with digital people walking and trains passing by. Just like in the real room, they experienced these virtual scenes with either the white noise playing or with silence. Throughout every trial, sensors under their feet measured exactly how much they swayed, tracking both the total area their body covered and the speed of their movements.
The results confirmed what scientists already knew about vision: when the participants closed their eyes or when the virtual world began to move, their bodies swayed significantly more. Vision is a powerful stabilizer, and removing it or confusing it with a moving scene makes standing still much harder. However, the role of the sound was far more complicated and depended entirely on the individual and the setting. In the real-world room, the steady white noise did not make a statistically significant difference for the group as a whole. Yet, when the researchers looked at each person individually, a clear pattern emerged. Some people stood noticeably steadier with the noise, while a smaller group actually swayed more. Interestingly, many of those who found the noise helpful when their eyes were open lost that benefit when they closed their eyes, suggesting that the sound only served as a helpful anchor when the visual world was still available to support it.
The virtual reality tests told a different story. In the digital subway, the steady noise did not help the group as a whole, and in fact, more people became less stable with the sound than they did without it. This was especially true when the virtual scene was moving. The researchers suspect that in the complex, moving virtual environment, the sound delivered through headphones may have acted as a distraction rather than a guide. Unlike the loudspeakers in the real room, which provided a fixed point in space, the sound in the headset came from everywhere and nowhere at once, potentially confusing the brain's attempt to sort out the moving visual world from the auditory input. For some participants, the combination of a moving scene and the constant noise created a mental overload, making it harder to focus on staying upright.
The study concludes that there is no single rule for how sound affects balance. For some people, in certain conditions, a steady noise can act as a helpful tool to improve stability. For others, or in different environments, that same noise can be a hindrance. The brain's ability to use sound for balance is highly personal and depends on what else is happening around the person. While the findings do not suggest that white noise is a universal cure for balance issues, they do highlight that our sensory systems are incredibly flexible and individual. As researchers continue to explore how we move through the world, they are learning that the path to better balance assessments and training may lie not in a one-size-fits-all solution, but in understanding the unique way each person's brain weighs the sights, sounds, and sensations of their daily life.
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