The aim of the study was to investigate the possible effects on the performance of a skilled shooter of the delivery of transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) to the right parietal and left frontal areas of the brain. An athlete (35-year-old male) with 16 years of shooting experience was involved in the study. The participant performed 40 shots in two different sessions (sham and tRNS) during which his performance was assessed using the SCATT shooter training system, while physiological and postural data were collected. Findings showed that tRNS stimulation can improve shooting performance. Considering heart rate as an index of arousal, it is evident that its increase during the tRNS is consistent with the hypothesis that arousal plays an important role in modulating selective attention. Probably this is caused by the increase of cognitive resources devoted to help, maintain, and sustain attention for the time necessary to perform the visual–spatial–motor task.
Anorthoscopy is a presentation mode in which an image is shown sliding behind a slit-shaped aperture, so that it is visible only part by part and never in its entirety. With the aims to assess (1) whether the processing of complex stimuli (faces) correctly occurs in anorthoscopy, and (2) whether the Own-Gender Bias (OGB: the better recognition of stimuli belonging to the same gender of the observer: faster and more accurate) and the Left-Face Bias (LFB: the preference to analyze the left half of the face) occur in such a part by part presentation, we presented female and male faces as whole stimuli (Experiment 1) and in anorthoscopy (Experiments 2 and 3), as well as female/male chimeric faces (Experiment 4), during a gender categorization task. Experiment 1 confirmed that participants correctly categorized the gender of faces, but the OGB was not found. In Experiments 2 and 3 we manipulated the direction (Experiment 2: upward/downward; Experiment 3: leftward/rightward), the speed (slow and fast) of the sliding faces, and the width of the aperture (small and large). Both tasks revealed that facial gender was correctly categorized in anorthoscopy. The OGB was found, but only for males/females in Experiments 2/3, respectively. In Experiment 4 the LFB emerged only in the tachistoscopic session, suggesting that this perceptual bias does not extend to anorthoscopy.
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