The relationship between action anticipation and emotion recognition in athletes of open skill sports

Action anticipation plays an important role in the successful performance of open skill sports, such as ball and combat sports. Evidence has shown that elite athletes of open sports excel in action anticipation. Most studies have targeted ball sports and agreed that information on body mechanics is one of the key determinants for successful action anticipation in open sports. However, less is known about combat sports, and whether facial emotions have an influence on athletes’ action anticipation skill. It has been suggested that the understanding of intention in combat sports relies heavily on emotional context. Based on this suggestion, the present study compared the action anticipation performances of taekwondo athletes, weightlifting athletes, and non-athletes and then correlated these with their performances of emotion recognition. This study primarily found that accurate action anticipation does not necessarily rely on the dynamic information of movement, and that action anticipation performance is correlated with that of emotion recognition in taekwondo athletes, but not in weightlifting athletes. Our results suggest that the recognition of facial emotions plays a role in the action prediction in such combat sports as taekwondo.     

Identifying when children with visual impairment share attention: A novel protocol and the impact of visual acuity

BackgroundIn Coordinated Joint Engagement (CJE), children acknowledge that they and their social partners are paying attention to the same object. The achievement of CJE, critical for healthy development, is at risk in infants with visual impairment (VI). Research on CJE in these children is limited because investigators use a child’s gaze switch between social partner and object to index CJE. Research is needed that identifies CJE in children with VI using behaviors that do not require normal vision and that explores the relationship between CJE and visual function. This study aimed to (a) develop a protocol for identifying CJE in children with VI, and (b) explore the relationship between CJE and infants’ visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS), measured with Preferential Looking (PL) techniques and Visual Evoked Potential (VEP).MethodsA protocol that included 9 indices of CJE that did not require normal vision was developed to code videos of 20 infants with VI (mean age =1 year, 6 months, 27 days) and their caregivers. The percentage of CJE episodes in which each index was observed was calculated. Inter-coder reliability was measured using Cohen’s Kappa. Linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the infants’ visual function and CJE.ResultsInter-rater reliability between a first coder and each of two second coders were 0.98 and 0.90 for determining whether the child participated in CJE. The following indices were observed the most (in 43–62 % of CJE): child’s body orientation to caregiver, gaze switch between caregiver and object, and vocalization to caregiver. The only significant model included VA (measured with PL) as a single predictor and explained 26.8 % of the variance in CJE.ConclusionsThe novel protocol can be used to identify CJE in children with VI with good inter-coder reliability. The data suggest that children with lower VA exhibited less CJE.     

The influence of psychological variables on sports performance: assessment with the Questionnaire of Sports Performance-related Psychological Characteristics

The purpose of this research was to observe the relationship among psychological variables and three important issues in sports competition: achieving success, long-term continuance and sustaining injuries. Three studies were carried out with three groups of athletes from the areas of judo, football and swimming, using the Questionnaire of Sports Performance-related Psychological Characteristics as the measuring instrument. The analyses carried out revealed significantly statistical associations between the perception of stress control and of self-confidence, and between achieving success, long-term continuance in competition sports and sustaining injuries. These results indicate the importance of psychological skills training to aid sports performance and prevent injuries, as well as the use of the above-mentioned questionnaire, which, with a limited number of items, measures a wide range of psychological variables in the specific context of sports.     

Executive functions in elite athletes – Comparing open-skill and closed-skill sports and considering the role of athletes' past involvement in both sport categories

Previous research documented differences in executive functions between elite athletes in different sports. It was argued that athletes in sport disciplines with higher cognitive demands (i.e., open-skill) show better executive functions than athletes in less cognitively challenging sport disciplines (i.e., closed-skill). In the current study, we aimed at detecting differences in executive functions between elite athletes in open-skill versus closed-skill sports and questioned the role of their total involvement in these sports until the age of 18 on executive functions.Seventy-five elite athletes (45 males and 30 females; M_age = 23.03 ± 4.41 years) from various sports were classified as open- or closed-skill athletes based on the sport they currently competed in. The athletes conducted a series of neuro-psychological tests measuring working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (Design Fluency test, Trail Making test, Flanker task, and a 2-back task). Retrospective interviews assessed athletes' sport involvement in open-skill and closed-skill sports until the age of 18.MANCOVAs revealed that athletes in open-skill sports performed better on measures of working memory and cognitive flexibility. Generalized Linear Models displayed that elite athletes in closed-skill sports, with greater involvement in open-skill sports until the age of 18, performed better during working memory and cognitive flexibility tasks.The results indicate that extensive time spent in open- and closed-skill sports can affect executive functions in elite athletes. A high involvement in open-skill sports proved to be beneficial for executive functions, in particular for elite athletes in closed-skill sports. These findings suggest that experiences in cognitively demanding sports may cause benefits for the development of executive functions.     

Is optimal vision required for the successful execution of an interceptive task?

The importance of optimal visual function in demanding interceptive tasks is far from established. The aim of the study was to determine whether induced myopic blur and hence sub-optimal visual function would give rise to a detrimental effect on performance in the execution of an interceptive task. The batting performance of grade level cricket players was assessed facing a bowling machine whilst wearing contact lenses of four different refractive conditions (plano (nil), +1.00, +2.00 and +3.00D over-refraction), inducing increasing amounts of myopic blur. Performance for each condition was assessed based both on the shot quality against each delivery judged by a qualified cricket coach blind to each condition, along with an evaluation of the quality of ball-bat contact for each delivery. No significant change was found in batting performance with the introduction of +1.00 and +2.00D of induced myopic blur. A +3.00D over-correction was required before any significant decrease in batting performance was detected, demonstrating that batters needed to be essentially legally blind (as simulated through the use of the +3.00D over-refraction) before there was any significant measurable decrement in batting performance. We concluded that optimal visual correction is not necessarily required for optimal performance in a demanding interceptive task, and that the human perceptual-motor system is capable of compensating for marked alterations in input.     

360°-multiple object tracking in team sport athletes: Reliability and relationship to visuospatial cognitive functions

IntroductionIn team sports, the ability to visually track the movements of teammates and opponents simultaneously is a critical aspect of success. In sports psychology, this ability can be examined with the help of the multiple object tracking paradigm. The current study investigated the relationship between task performance in a novel 360°-multiple object tracking task and visuospatial cognitive functions as well as the reliability of the task.MethodsIn a sample of 153 team sport athletes the relationships between performance in the 360°-multiple object tracking task and performance in a spatial attention task, a spatial working memory task, and a fluid intelligence task at a first time of measurement were investigated. Additionally, at a second time of measurement the test-retest reliability of the 360°-multiple object tracking task was measured over a six-week interval in a subsample of 65 athletes.ResultsThe expected significant correlations between the performance in the 360°-multiple object tracking task and the tasks measuring spatial attention and working memory were observed. Test-retest reliability analysis indicated a good reliability of the procedure.ConclusionsThe results of this study demonstrate that the novel 360°-multiple object tracking task allows the reliable assessment of visuospatial cognitive performance of athletes in a dynamic 360°-environment.     

The relationship between visual attention and expertise in sports

ObjectivesGiven the prevalence of misperception and failed perception, particularly in attention-demanding team sports, surprisingly few studies have explored whether experts in team sports differ from other athletes and from non-athletes in their basic attention abilities.MethodIn this study, we examined group differences between experts in team handball (n = 40), athletes from non-team sports (n = 40), and novice athletes (n = 40) using a battery of three attention tasks: a functional field of view task, a multiple-object tracking task, and an inattentional blindness task.ResultsPerformance on the three attention tasks was largely independent, with no significant correlations among the tasks. Team sports experts showed no better performance on the basic attention tasks than did athletes from non-teams sports or novice athletes.ConclusionsThe finding that all basic attention tasks are largely independent provides preliminary support for the idea that attentional breadth, tracking performance, and inattentional blindness are distinct attentional processes. Our results demonstrate that sports expertise effects are unrelated to basic differences in attention—expertise does not appear to produce differences in basic attention and basic differences in attention do not appear to predict eventual expertise. Further experiments could focus on the ways in which more specific attentional strategies and processes contribute to sports performance.     

The Sporting Body: Body Image and Eating Disorder Symptomatology Among Female Athletes from Leanness Focused and Nonleanness Focused Sports

Female athletes experience pressure to conform to social and sporting norms concerning body weight. This study compared general and sporting body dissatisfaction and disordered eating symptomatology among 320 elite, recreational, and noncompetitive female athletes aged 17 to 30 years competing in leanness focused sports and nonleanness focused sports. Participants completed an online questionnaire including demographic questions, the Eating Attitudes Test, and the Figure Rating Scale. Athletes from leanness focused sports reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction and greater disordered eating symptomatology regardless of participation level. Elite athletes reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction and greater disordered eating symptomatology regardless of sport type, and differences between recreational and noncompetitive athletes were not found. More than 60% of elite athletes from leanness focused and nonleanness focused sports reported pressure from coaches concerning body shape. The findings have important implications for identifying risk factors for eating disorders among female athletes, where athletes who compete at elite level and those who compete in leanness focused sports at any level may be at higher risk for developing eating disorders.     

What do we know about the effects of mental training applied to combat sports? A systematic review

ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate the effects of mental training applied to combat sports athletes.MethodsA systematic review was conducted, following the criteria recommended by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, from inception up to February 2021, with an electronic search in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus databases. As eligibility criteria, this review included original studies that carried out any type of mental training, with or without a control group, acute or chronic, in combat sports athletes, of both sexes, age >16 and < 45 years old, from any competitive level, and evaluated the effect of these interventions on psychological measures. The quality assessment was conducted through the application of the Cochrane Collaboration tool.ResultsIn total, 1921 studies were found and after application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 21 articles were included in this review. A total of 417 subjects were investigated from the 21 studies. As results, despite the variations in the type and characteristics of the interventions, studies showed that mental training seems to improve anxiety, mood, self-confidence, emotions, cohesion, emotional balance, and relaxation, in addition to physical and athletic performance.ConclusionsThis systematic review based on the evidence from the selected studies indicates that mental training seems to be beneficial for athletes in combat modalities, while combat sports can benefit from mental training in preparation, competition, and recovery. However, the interpretation of these findings must consider that there is limited scientific production with good quality studies investigating the effects of psychological intervention protocols in athletes of combat sports in different combat modalities.Prospero register numberCRD42020169793.     

Executive abilities in children with congenital visual impairment in mid-childhood

The role of vision and vision deprivation in the development of executive function (EF) abilities in childhood is little understood; aspects of EF such as initiative, attention orienting, inhibition, planning and performance monitoring are often measured through visual tasks. Studying the development and integrity of EF abilities in children with congenital visual impairment (VI) may provide important insights into the development of EF and also its possible relationship with vision and non-visual senses. The current study investigates non-visual EF abilities in 18 school-age children of average verbal intelligence with VI of differing levels of severity arising from congenital disorders affecting the eye, retina, or anterior optic nerve. Standard auditory neuropsychological assessments of sustained and divided attention, phonemic, semantic and switching verbal fluency, verbal working memory, and ratings of everyday executive abilities by parents were undertaken. Executive skills were compared to age-matched typically-sighted (TS) typically-developing children and across levels of vision (mild to moderate VI [MVI] or severe to profound VI [SPVI]). The results do not indicate significant differences or deficits on direct assessments of verbal and auditory EF between the groups. However, parent ratings suggest difficulties with everyday executive abilities, with the greatest difficulties in those with SPVI. The findings are discussed as possibly reflecting increased demands of behavioral executive skills for children with VI in everyday situations despite auditory and verbal EF abilities in the typical range for their age. These findings have potential implications for clinical and educational practices.     

Anticipating and training for the worst-case metabolic scenario: a comment on Del Vecchio, Hirata, and Franchini (2011)

Del Vecchio, Hirata, and Franchini (2011) studied the effort: pause ratio of mixed martial arts by analyzing 26 bouts in two separate mixed martial arts events in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They referenced research identifying effort:pause ratios from other combat sports ranging from 10:1 (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), 2:1 (judo and wrestling), and 1:3/1:4 (taekwondo). The authors identified an effort:pause ratio ranging from 1:2 to 1:4 in the bouts they analyzed, and suggested and described training programs that resemble this ratio. It is important for coaches to anticipate the most challenging metabolic mixed martial arts scenario and to create training programs that mimic that profile. Del Vecchio and associates' research is an important first step in gathering information which can help enhance training programs for injury prevention and performance enhancement.     

Competition between memory and perceptual tasks involving physically similar stimuli

Performance on a perceptual recognition task and a concurrently performed short-term memory (STM) task was studied. The stimuli used in the STM task were either visually similar, acoustically similar, or dissimilar to the stimuli in the perceptual task. The results demonstrated that any type of concurrent list memorization has a detrimental effect upon perceptual performance, but this effect is magnified if the stimuli used in the 2 tasks are visually similar. Acoustic similarity had no effect. The results document the fact that distinct tasks interfere, when the tasks compete for a limited total processing capacity, or when the tasks demand the same visual coding program.     

Effective 3-D shape discrimination survives retinal blur

A single experiment evaluated observers’ ability to visually discriminate 3-D object shape, where the 3-D structure was defined by motion, texture, Lambertian shading, and occluding contours. The observers’ vision was degraded to varying degrees by blurring the experimental stimuli, using 2.0-, 2.5-, and 3.0-diopter convex lenses. The lenses reduced the observers’ acuity from ?0.091 LogMAR (in the no-blur conditions) to 0.924 LogMAR (in the conditions with the most blur; 3.0-diopter lenses). This visual degradation, although producing severe reductions in visual acuity, had only small (but significant) effects on the observers’ ability to discriminate 3-D shape. The observers’ shape discrimination performance was facilitated by the objects’ rotation in depth, regardless of the presence or absence of blur. Our results indicate that accurate global shape discrimination survives a considerable amount of retinal blur.     

Effects of a cognitive specific imagery intervention on the soccer skill performance of young athletes: Age group comparisons

Objectives

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a cognitive specific (CS) imagery intervention on the soccer skill performance of young athletes aged 7-14 years and determine if performance varied with age.

Design

Participants were 143 soccer athletes belonging to 16 different teams. Teams were randomly assigned to either a cognitive specific (CS) or motivational general-arousal imagery intervention.

Methods

Athletes were administered the SIQ-C and tested on the soccer skill to determine baseline performance. Following their imagery intervention, athletes were tested on the same soccer skill, and completed the SIQ-C a second time.

Results

The results indicated that only the younger athletes (7-10 years) receiving CS imagery performed faster following their intervention. Moreover, only the 7-8 year old athletes in the CS imagery condition significantly increased their use of CS imagery over time.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that young athletes who use CS imagery will benefit from a CS imagery intervention, thus implying that mental skills training should begin at a young age if athletes are to maximize the benefits of such training.     

Effects of Fencing Training on Motor Performance and Asymmetry Vary With Handedness

Abstract

Previous studies showed that motor asymmetries are reduced in left-handers and after a long-term fencing training in right-handers. Interestingly, left-handed athletes are substantially over-represented in elite fencing. These findings have been speculatively explained by imbalance in experience of fighting opposite handedness opponents resulted from skewed distribution of handedness, i.e. lefties encounter more righties than righties encounter lefties. Whereas these assumptions could be accurate, the underlying mechanisms remain ambiguous. In this study, we investigated effects of fencing training on motor performance and asymmetry with respect to handedness. We compared fencing performance of left- and right-handed fencers in both training and combat conditions. In the combat condition, left-handers won seven out of twelve matches consisted of twelve bouts each. They also showed a significantly longer hit detection time, a measure indicating better quality of fencing attack. In the training condition, left-handed fencers completed fencing board tests significantly faster than right-handers. These findings provide additional factor of superior motor performance to be considered when interpreting over-representation of lefties in elite fencing. Furthermore, our left-handers were less lateralized, which could explain that superior motor performance. This idea is consistent with previous findings of reduced asymmetry in right-handed fencers when comparing to non-athletes.     

Matters Olympic and Paralympic

Over the past several years, I have been arguing that nature sports such as surfing, backcountry skiing, and mountaineering are best described as sports in which athletes interact dynamically with natural features rather than compete with other humans. This article is part of a larger attempt to trace the implications of that view. Specifically, I consider the relationship between nature sports and competition. To this purpose, I address three separate, but related topics: First, I reply to Leslie Howe’s article, ‘On Competing Against Oneself, Or, I Need to Get a Different Voice in My Head’, in which she argues that there is a version of self-competition that is central to nature sports. Second, I argue that adapting nature sports to fit into formal competitive frameworks is problematic because, when we do so, the focus shifts from athletes interacting with natural features to athletes using natural features to outdo other athletes. And third, I argue that nature sports may seem competitive because the interaction between humans and natural features produces a type of intensity that is very similar to the intensity produced in competition. I argue further that because nature sports can produce this intensity in an environment that is not based on competition, they present an important alternative to traditional sports.     

Spatial vision meets spatial cognition: examining the effect of visual blur on human visually guided route learning

Visual navigation is a task that involves processing two-dimensional light patterns on the retinas to obtain knowledge of how to move through a three-dimensional environment. Therefore, modifying the basic characteristics of the two-dimensional information provided to navigators should have important and informative effects on how they navigate. Despite this, few basic research studies have examined the effects of systematically modifying the available levels of spatial visual detail on navigation performance. In this study, we tested the effects of a range of visual blur levels--approximately equivalent to various degrees of low-pass spatial frequency filtering--on participants' visually guided route-learning performance using desktop virtual renderings of the Hebb-Williams mazes. Our findings show that the function of blur and time to finish the mazes follows a sigmoidal pattern, with the inflection point around +2 D of experienced defocus. This suggests that visually guided route learning is fairly robust to blur, with the threshold level being just above the limit for legal blindness. These findings have implications for models of route learning, as well as for practical situations in which humans must navigate under conditions of blur.     

The “Second Place” Problem: Assistive Technology in Sports and (Re) Constructing Normal

Objections to the use of assistive technologies (such as prostheses) in elite sports are generally raised when the technology in question is perceived to afford the user a potentially “unfair advantage,” when it is perceived as a threat to the purity of the sport, and/or when it is perceived as a precursor to a slippery slope toward undesirable changes in the sport. These objections rely on being able to quantify standards of “normal” within a sport so that changes attributed to the use of assistive technology can be judged as causing a significant deviation from some baseline standard. This holds athletes using assistive technologies accountable to standards that restrict their opportunities to achieve greatness, while athletes who do not use assistive technologies are able to push beyond the boundaries of these standards without moral scrutiny. This paper explores how constructions of fairness and “normality” impact athletes who use assistive technology to compete in a sporting venue traditionally populated with “able-bodied” competitors. It argues that the dynamic and obfuscated construction of “normal” standards in elite sports should move away from using body performance as the measuring stick of “normal,” toward alternate forms of constructing norms such as defining, quantifying, and regulating the mechanical actions that constitute the critical components of a sport. Though framed within the context of elite sports, this paper can be interpreted more broadly to consider problems with defining “normal” bodies in a society in which technologies are constantly changing our abilities and expectations of what normal means.     

TEST ANXIETY AND MOTOR PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF MUSCULAR AND ATTENTIONAL DEMANDS*

In experiment 1, the attentional demands of two fine (finger movements) and two gross (arm movements) motor tasks were empirically determined. In experiment 2, the effects of test condition (stress) and anxiety trait on motor performance were analyzed. A significant interactive effect appeared: the performance of high-trait-anxious subjects was impaired under evaluative conditions in fine and/or attentionally demanding tasks, but not in gross and attentionally simple tasks. As test conditions and anxiety trait have proved to arouse physiological alterations and aversive cognitive representations, the selective performance impairment found can be attributed to interferences on finger effectors or proprioceptors and to attentional overload, respectively.     

Are expert athletes ‘expert’ in the cognitive laboratory? A meta‐analytic review of cognition and sport expertise

Recent literature has demonstrated the usefulness of fitness and computer‐based cognitive training as a means to enhance cognition and brain function. However, it is unclear whether the combination of fitness and cognitive training that results from years of extensive sport training also results in superior performance on tests of cognitive processes. In this study we examine, in a quantitative meta‐analysis (k = 20), the relationship between expertise in sports and laboratory‐based measures of cognition. We found that athletes performed better on measures of processing speed and a category of varied attentional paradigms, and athletes from interceptive sport types and males showed the largest effects. Based on our results, more research should be done with higher‐level cognitive tasks, such as tasks of executive function and more varied sub‐domains of visual attention. Furthermore, future studies should incorporate more female athletes and use a diverse range of sport types and levels of expertise. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.