Effects of emotional videos on postural control in children

• Postural responses to highly arousing pleasant and unpleasant videos were examined.
• The arousal influences postural control (PC) in children and adults in a similar way.
• The development of PC does not depend on the maturation of the emotional processing.

The link between emotions and postural control has been rather unexplored in children. The objective of the present study was to establish whether the projection of pleasant and unpleasant videos with similar arousal would lead to specific postural responses such as postural freezing, aversive or appetitive behaviours as a function of age. We hypothesized that postural sway would similarly increase with the viewing of high arousal videos in children and adults, whatever the emotional context. 40 children participated in the study and were divided into two groups of age: group 7–9 years (n = 23; mean age = 8 years ± 0.7) and group 10–12 years (n = 17; mean age = 11 years ± 0.7). 19 adults (mean age = 25.8 years ± 4.4) also took part in the experiment. They viewed emotional videos while standing still on a force platform. Centre of foot pressure (CoP) displacements were analysed. Antero-posterior, medio-lateral mean speed and sway path length increased similarly with the viewing of high arousal movies in the younger, older children, and adults. Our findings suggest that the development of postural control is not influenced by the maturation of the emotional processing.