This study examined the practice-related sensitivity of automatic change detection. The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials was compared in handball players and in sport shooters. Whereas effective performance in handball requires processing of a wide visual field, effective performance in shooting requires concentration to a narrow field. Thus, we hypothesized larger sensitivity to peripheral stimuli violating the regularity of sequential stimulation in handball players. Participants performed a tracking task, while task-irrelevant checkerboard patterns (a frequent and an infrequent type) were presented in the lateral parts of the visual field. We analyzed the vMMN, a signature of automatic detection of violating sequential regularity, and sensory components (P1, N1, and P2). We obtained larger vMMN in the handball players’ group indicating larger sensitivity to peripheral stimuli. These results suggest the plasticity of the automatic visual processing, i.e., it can adapt to sport-specific demands, and this can be captured even in a short experimental session in the laboratory.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ANALYSIS IS TO DETERMINE WHETHER THERE IS A LEFT FOOT ADVANTAGE IN SOCCER PERFORMANCE. THE OUTCOME OF THE REVIEWED ARTICLES SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS A LEFT FOOT ADVANTAGE IN SOCCER, NO MATTER HOW SMALL THAT MAY BE. NEVERTHELESS, THIS CONCLUSION MAY BE TENTATIVE BECAUSE LITTLE WORK WAS CONDUCTED IN THIS AREA AND THE FOCUS IS VERY DIVERSE. THE CURRENT REVIEW RAISES IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK. THE EXAMINATION OF THE TEMPORAL OCCLUSION PARADIGM AND THE COMPARISON OF SPATIAL ORIENTATIONS AND THE ATTENTIONAL ABILITIES OF RIGHT- AND LEFT-FOOTED SOCCER PLAYERS MAY GENERATE EMPIRICAL WORK IN THE FIELD.

Change blindness experiments had demonstrated that detection of significant changes in natural images is extremely difficult when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene. On the other hand, research on the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs) identified sensitivity to events (deviants) different from the regularity of stimulus sequences (standards), even if the deviant and standard events are non-attended. The present study sought to investigate the apparent controversy between the experience under the change blindness paradigm and the ERP results. To this end, the stimulus of Rensink, O’Reagen, and Clark (1997) was adapted to a passive oddball ERP paradigm to investigate the underlying processing differences between the standard (original) and deviant (altered) stimuli measured in 22 subjects. Posterior negativity within the 280–330 ms latency range emerged as the difference between ERPs elicited by standard and deviant stimuli, identified as visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). These results raise the possibility that change blindness is not based on the lack of detailed visual representations or the deficiency of comparing two representations. However, effective discrimination of the two scene versions requires considerable frequency differences between them.

The human face is one of the most frequently used stimuli in vMMN (visual mismatch negativity) research. Previous studies showed that vMMN is sensitive to facial emotions and gender, but investigations of age-related vMMN differences are relatively rare. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the models’ age in photographs were automatically detected, even if the photographs were not parts of the ongoing task. Furthermore, we investigated age-related differences, and the possibility of different sensitivity to photographs of participants’ own versus different ages. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to faces of young and old models in younger (N = 20; 18–30 years) and older groups (N = 20; 60–75 years). The faces appeared around the location of the field of a tracking task. In sequences the young or the old faces were either frequent (standards) or infrequent (deviants). According to the results, a regular sequence of models’ age is automatically registered, and faces violating the models’ age elicited the vMMN component. However, in this study vMMN emerged only in the older group to same-age deviants. This finding is explained by the less effective inhibition of irrelevant stimuli in the elderly, and corresponds to own-age bias effect of recognition studies.

The use of video technology in perfecting athletic training has many benefits on performance. The aim of this study was to determine: (1) athletes' perception of the importance of bilateral skills in sports; (2) the prevalence of use of video feedback in individual skill development; and (3) athletes' attitude toward "mirrored" video self-modelling in four sports. A total of 20 elite athletes, from four popular team sports, were interviewed regarding the three issues using semi-structured interviews. The qualitative results indicate that bilateral skills are differently appreciated in the four team sports. They are perceived as the most important by soccer players, followed by basketball-and handball players and least important by the water polo players. These findings are in full synchrony with athletes' attitudes toward using mirrored video self-modelling. It emerges that the use of technology for developing bilateral skills, with the aim to improve sport performance, is currently sport specific and matches the actual worldwide ranking of the sports' popularity.

The detection of unattended visual changes is investigated by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs). The vMMN is measured as the difference between the ERPs to infrequent (deviant) and frequent (standard) stimuli irrelevant to the ongoing task. In the present study, we used human faces expressing different emotions as deviants and standards. In such studies, participants perform various tasks, so their attention is diverted from the vMMN-related stimuli. If such tasks vary in their attentional demand, they might influence the outcome of vMMN studies. In this study, we compared four kinds of frequently used tasks: (1) a tracking task that demanded continuous performance, (2) a detection task where the target stimuli appeared at any time, (3) a detection task where target stimuli appeared only in the inter-stimulus intervals, and (4) a task where target stimuli were members of the stimulus sequence. This fourth task elicited robust vMMN, while in the other three tasks, deviant stimuli elicited moderate posterior negativity (vMMN). We concluded that the ongoing task had a marked influence on vMMN; thus, it is important to consider this effect in vMMN studies.

The cognitive system automatically develops predictions on the basis of regularities of event sequences and reacts to the violation of these predictions. In the visual modality, the electrophysiological signature of this process is an event‐related potential component, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). So far, we have no data, whether the system underlying vMMN is capable of dealing with more than one event sequence simultaneously. To disclose this aspect of the capacity of the system, in a passive oddball paradigm, we presented two interwoven sequences. The stimuli were objects (diamond patterns with their diagonals), one of the sequences was presented to the left side and the other to the right side of the visual field. From time to time, two parallel lines of the diamonds disappeared (OFF event) and then reappeared (ON event). The frequently vanishing pair of lines on the left side (standard) was identical to the rarely vanishing lines of the objects on the right side (deviant) and vice versa. We found that deviant ON events elicited vMMN only for left‐side deviants and deviant OFF events elicited vMMN only for right‐side deviants. The standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) source localization showed vMMN sources both in posterior visual structures and in anterior locations, and activity was stronger in the hemisphere contralateral to the deviant event. According to the results, the system underlying vMMN is capable of dealing with two sequences, but within a sequence, it detected only one type (either OFF or ON) of deviancy.

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