When two athletes meet inside the ropes of the boxing ring to fight, their cognitive systems have to respond as quickly as possible to a manifold of stimuli to assure victory. In the present work, we studied the pre-attentive mechanisms, which form the basis of an athlete's ability in reacting to an opponent's punches. Expert boxers, beginner boxers and people with no experience of boxing performed a Simon-like task where they judged the colour of the boxing gloves worn by athletes in attack postures by pressing two lateralised keys. Although participants were not instructed to pay attention to the direction of the punches, beginner boxers' responses resembled a defence-related pattern, expert boxers' resembled counterattacks, whereas non-athletes' responses were not influenced by the unrelated task information. Results are discussed in the light of an expertise-related action simulation account.

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INTRODUCTION: The visual scanning techniques used by helicopter pilots are a critical skill to accomplish safe and correct landing. According to the human information processing theory, visual scanning techniques can be analyzed as a function of fixation location, number, and duration of fixations.METHODS: This study assessed these techniques in expert and novice pilots during an open sea flight simulation in a low-workload condition, consisting of a daylight and good weather simulation, and in a high-workload condition of night-time, low visibility, and adverse weather conditions. Taking part in the study were 12 helicopter pilots. Mental workload was assessed through psychological measures (NASA-TLX). The pilots performance was assessed and eye movements were recorded using an eye-tracker during four phases of the flight simulations.RESULTS: Overall, pilots made more fixations out of the window (OTW; 22.54) than inside the cockpit (ITC; 11.08), Fixations were longer OTW (830.17 ms) than ITC (647.97 ms) and they were shorter in the low-demand condition (626.27 ms). Further, pilots reported higher mental workload (NASA-TLX) in the high-demand condition compared to the low-demand condition, regardless of their expertise, and expert pilots reported a lower mental workload compared to novice pilots.DISCUSSION: Pilots performance and perceived mental workload varied as a function of expertise and flight conditions. Pilots rely on instrument support during the cruise phase and external visual cues during the landing phase. The implications for a new visual landing system design are discussed.Rainieri G, Fraboni F, Russo G, Tul M, Pingitore A, Tessari A, Pietrantoni L. Visual scanning techniques and mental workload of helicopter pilots during simulated flight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(1):1119.

The present research investigated the role of the physical activity on cognitive functions and psychosocial characteristics. Pre-adolescent children of a middle School of Rimini participated to extra physical activities (EPA) organised by the school. They performed a Free Recall memory Test (Nielson, Radtke & Jensen, 1996) and filled the self-esteem questionnaire (Rosenberg, 1965) and their results were compared with a group of students that did not performed the activity proposed (non-EPA). Moreover, to control the level of physical activity of the sample, participants filled the International activity questionnaire. The results showed that the students who participated to the extra physical activities had high self-esteem compared to the non-EPA group, while no differences between the groups emerged from the Free Recall Memory test.

Physical activity (PA) is an essential component of people's well-being. Copious evidence argues for its protective effect across individuals' lifespan. However, its role as a factor of enhancement for human cognitive skills is still a matter of study. The present work aims to provide conclusive evidence about PA's role in modulating working memory skills in active pre-adolescent children. By enrolling a large number of participants, we tested the effect of PA on Digit Span Backwards (DSB), a well-consolidated test taxing primarily short-term auditory memory, i.e., less dependent on attention fluctuations. Higher working memory capacity was assumed to emerge in the participants practising PA compared to the less active ones. Moreover, due to the different activities participants reported to practice, we expected that children practising open-skill activities manifested better memory skills than the peers practising closed-skill activities, due to the intrinsic nature of the two forms of exercises. Data supported the previous hypothesis highlighting PA's positive effect; however, they did not keep the assumed differences for open vs closed skills. Results are discussed in the light of the cognitive efforts required to sport beginners, particularly in the light of what they are prompted to code, remember and recall in each step of the proposed exercises.

Physical activity practice is very important for individual's wealth status. Moreover, it is possible to consider physical activity one of the teachers' tool to improve the academic achievement and the cognitive functions in children. However, according to some evidences it seems that the physical activity at high intensity increase the cognitive functions compared to the low intensity physical activity. In this project, we investigate how the intensity of physical activity affects a series of cognitive functions such as Attention and Working Memory. Eleven participants of a summer camp participated at the study. Three experimental weeks with different physical intensities were involved (Standard Intensity, High intensity and Low Intensity). Participants performed the cognitive tasks at the beginning and at the end of each experimental week. Our results indicated an effect of the physical activity intensity in some kind of attention. Working Memory instead, was not affected. Thus, our results suggested that intensity could be an important factor to increase some cognitive functions, but not all of them.

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The aim of this study is to verify the effectiveness of an intermittent training methodology in groups of boys belonging to the "Giovanissimi" category of 9-a-side football. The sample is made up of 10 athletes aged 14-15. The sporting season was divided following phases, that is, starting from a preparatory phase and then arriving at the competitive phase, the agonistic one. For the evaluation of the qualitative and quantitative data, each athlete was subjected to anthropometric tests (height, weight, BMI) and spinal flexibility tests both at entry and exit; for the evaluation of endurance, strength, speed, speed and agility the following tests were used: yo-yo Test, Sargent test, T-Test Agility, M test (20m adapted), Speed test 5m, 10m and 20mThrough the statistical model of the t-test for dependent samples, the effectiveness of the method used is evident. The data reveals significant increases for yo-yo Test, Sargent test, M (20m) test, T-Test agility. For the other tests carried out at the exit, there are no significant increases, because they are short-distance tests that show little increase, as the rapidity and speed, in this period of the developmental age, do not produce improvements for the morpho-functional adaptations specific. It has been shown how young boys, sedentary or moderately trained, can obtain benefits thanks to the proposed training, following an adequate programming and planning of training sessions according to their needs.