Use your brain if you have to

Journal of Sports Sciences, 2010

We compared the performance of tennis experts and non-experts using a simulated interceptive task, in which the ball could be unexpectedly deviated 400 ms before contact. The results showed that experts were more accurate than non-experts when intercepting balls that deviated in their trajectory and that this could be explained by their shorter visuo-motor delay in adapting their interceptive movement. In addition, multiple regression analyses revealed that visuo-motor delay was a good predictor of accuracy in this task. Finally, accuracy in the simulated interceptive task was shown to be a reasonable predictor of expertise in tennis assessed by national ranking. In combination, the present results suggest that an important component of expertise in interceptive skills is fast information-movement coupling, which corresponds to a reduced delay in integrating vision and action. Our findings highlight the potential of the virtual interceptive task used here to predict performance in tennis.

Attention, perception & psychophysics, 2014

Sports involving fast visual perception require players to compensate for delays in neural processing of visual information. Memory for the final position of a moving object is distorted forward along its path of motion (i.e., "representational momentum," RM). This cognitive extrapolation of visual perception might compensate for the neural delay in interacting appropriately with a moving object. The present study examined whether experienced batters cognitively extrapolate the location of a fast-moving object and whether this extrapolation is associated with coincident timing control. Nine expert and nine novice baseball players performed a prediction motion task in which a target moved from one end of a straight 400-cm track at a constant velocity. In half of the trials, vision was suddenly occluded when the target reached the 200-cm point (occlusion condition). Participants had to press a button concurrently with the target arrival at the end of the track and verbally report their subjective assessment of the first target-occluded position. Experts showed larger RM magnitude (cognitive extrapolation) than did novices in the occlusion condition. RM magnitude and timing errors were strongly correlated in the fast velocity condition in both experts and novices, whereas in the slow velocity condition, a significant correlation appeared only in experts. This suggests that experts can cognitively extrapolate the location of a moving object according to their anticipation and, as a result, potentially circumvent neural processing delays. This process might be used to control response timing when interacting with moving objects.

Expert interceptive actions are grounded in both perceptual judgment and movement control, yet research has largely focused on the role of anticipation. More recently, the emergence of ecological psychology has provided movement scientists with opportunities to develop further understanding of the processes underpinning the development of expert information-movement couplings. In this chapter we discuss key research that has enhanced our understanding of perceptual-motor learning with specific focus on the concepts of education of attention and calibration. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of this research in the study of expertise highlighting the need for future research using sporting tasks.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2016

Team sports place high demands on visuospatial and other cognitive skills. However, there is a lack of research on visuospatial skills of elite athletes and there are heterogeneous results on basic cognitive skills of this population. Therefore, this series of studies tested different cognitive skills in elite team sports athletes. In Experiment 1, elite athletes were compared to recreational athletes, but no differences were observed between the groups in choice response time (CRT) and mental rotation (MR). To see if differences could be observed when the tested groups had a greater difference in expertise and more representative stimuli, in Experiment 2, we tested CRT and MR of elite athletes who had higher level of expertise, and we also used three-dimensional human stimuli. Overall, we still found no differences in MR; however, elite athletes did have shorter CRTs. In Experiment 3, instead of testing MR, we compared elite athletes' and recreational athletes' basic cognitive skills, such as processing speed, letter readout speed, memory span, and sustained attention. We found that elite athletes only performed better in sustained attention. Building on this data, in a supplementary analysis (Experiment 4) we tested whether MR and CRTs are correlated with basic cognitive skills. Results show that processing speed is the best predictor for MR, whereas letter readout speed explains most of the variance in CRTs. Finally, we discuss these findings against the backdrop of expertise and offer implications for future studies on mental rotation.

One of the important aspects of attentional processes in sport performance is sustained attention during task execution. The objective of this study was to analyze the ability to maintain attention during a serial reaction time task performance in expert handball players (n = 12) and non-athletes (n = 12). Participants perform a FitLight TrainerTM (Fitlight Sports Corp., Canada) test protocol configured by the PDA controller which consisted of 10 series of simple motor reaction task to visual stimuli appearing on 8 wireless light discs. Each of the 10 series included 22 reactions. Ability to maintain attention was determined by analyzing the variability in results during testing, e.g. the total time of test execution and the average reaction time to visual stimulus in each subsequent series. The main finding in our study was that Non-athletes in comparison to Athletes had: (1) longer total time of test execution; (2) longer reaction time; (3) and higher variability in results during task performance. The results indicate a higher level of ability to maintain attention in handball players.

Applied Cognitive Psychology

A prominent topic is whether visual or motor expertise makes greater contribution to expert visual anticipation in sport. This stems from psychological theories, such as common coding theory, which predicts perception and action can inform each other in a bidirectional manner. This paper reviews the literature that has investigated visual and motor expertise contributions to expert visual anticipation in sport. First, psychological theories are discussed that predict visual and motor contributions to perceptual-motor behaviour. Second, classifications of motor skills and studies are presented to evaluate the literature reviewed. Third, literature is reviewed with reference to performance, learning, and transfer of visual anticipation, which are all vital for successful sports performance. The review aims to stimulate thought about mechanisms underpinning visual and motor expertise relative to performance, learning, and transfer of anticipation skill, which can better guide the practitioner to improve skill.

2010

ABSTRACT Exquisite visually-guided movements underpin expertise in fast interceptive sports. The assumption that skilled performance relies on superior visual skills has been challenged by studies of sporting expertise which typically advocate vision to be a poor predictor of sporting success.

Movement, health & exercise, 2017

The ability to anticipate accurately and consistently plays a vital role to excel in sports performance. The present study was designed to determine the differences of visual anticipation time between athletes in open and closed skills sports. A total of 95 junior athletes, aged 13 to 16 years old (Mean age=14.84±1.04 years) from Bukit Jalil Sports School participated in the study. Participants were distributed to open skills (n=47) and closed skills (n=48) sports according to their sports environment. Visual anticipation time was tested using Bassin Anticipation Timer in response to stimuli at the speed of 5, 10, and 15 mph, measuring absolute and variable error. Absolute error measured the accuracy of responses while variable error focused on the consistency of responses. The results of this investigation showed that in general open skills sport are not superior over anticipation ability in relations to accuracy and consistency as compared to closed skills sports across all speeds (p < 0.05). The evidence from this study suggested more emphasis on training related to eye and hand coordination would be imperative for open skills sports athletes to enhance in on-field sports performance. This study could serve as a base for future studies focusing on visual and hand coordination related to speed as anticipation has been proven to be the key leading to superior performance and for talent identification purposes. Future research concentrating on elite athletes as well as focused sports group would provide further insights on anticipation ability of athletes.

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2011

In the present study, differences in visuospatial attention lateralization were evaluated in athletes engaged in open compared to closed skill sports and sedentary non-athletes. 23 volleyball players (open skill; Italian national level and regional level), 10 rowers (closed skill, Italian national level) and 23 sedentary participants responded to a computerized linelength judgment task. Five lines, differing in the length of their right and left segments, were randomly presented; the respondent made a forced-choice decision about the respective length of the two segments. Volleyball players responded significantly faster; those at the higher competitive level were also more accurate, making a statistically significantly lower number of leftward errors as compared with rowers and controls. If such responses are due to training rather than self-selection of ability, then the results may suggest the possibility of changing the distribution of visuospatial attention by training in open-skill sports.