Attention and executive control in varsity athletes engaging in strategic and static sports

Abstract

Examining non-sport-related cognitive tasks of attention and executive control in skilled athletes may provide insight into the acquisition of highly specific skills developed in experts as well as help identify successful performance in sport. Through a cross-sectional design, this study examined performance on aspects of attention and executive control among varsity athletes playing soccer (strategic sport) or track & field (static sport) using a computerized test of attention and executive control. Ninety-seven university athletes participating in soccer (n = 50) or track and field (n = 47) were included in the study. Domains of attention and executive control were examined using the Attention Network Test-Interactions (ANT-I). Mean reaction time (RT) and intra-individual variability (IIV) were compared between groups as measures of performance speed and performance stability respectively. Soccer players demonstrated overall faster RTs (p = 0.0499; ηp2 = .04) and higher response accuracy (p = .021, d = .48) on the ANT-I compared to track and field athletes. Faster RTs were observed for soccer players when presented with an alerting tone (p = .029, d = .45), valid orienting cue (p = .019, d = .49) and incongruent flanker (p = .031, d = .45). No significant group differences were observed in IIV (p = .083, d = .36). Athletes engaging in strategic sports (i.e., soccer) demonstrated faster performance under test conditions that required higher vigilance and conflict resolution. These findings suggest that engagement in strategic sports is associated with enhanced performance on non-sport-related cognitive tasks of attention and executive control.

Cognitive Mechanisms underlying sports performance of athletes engaged in strategic team sports

“…Consistent with previous studies, sports persons in strategic sports such as football and basketball displayed better performance on tasks of motion perception and visual attention compared to non-athletes (Krenn et al, 2018;Meng et al, 2019). In one of the recent studies by Rahimi et al (2022) overall faster reaction times were observed among strategic sport athletes. Sports persons may be at an advantage as they are required to process multiple stimuli, engage in coordinated actions and execute complex actions (Hulsdunker, Ostermann, & Mierau, 2019).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge none of the previous studies have compared cognitive performance across strategic or open skill sports. Most of the work has either compared open vs closed skill sports (Wang et al, 2013) or strategic vs static sports or expert vs novices (Rahimi et al, 2022). However, it is equally important to understand if different strategic sports also vary in terms of the cognitive demands related to different aspects of attention, working memory and motion perception.…”

Developing integrative practice on basic soccer skills to stimulate cognitive promotion for children and adolescents

“…In the comparisons between soccer players and athletes in other sports, favorable executive function performance was also found in soccer players. Specifically, soccer players outperformed track and field athletes in the tests of attention and executive control (Rahimi et al, 2022). Also, superior executive functions of working memory and cognitive flexibility were reported by comparing soccer players with boxers and shooters (Yongtawee et al, 2022).…”

Enhanced Cognitive Inhibition in Table Tennis Athletes: Insights from Color-Word and Spatial Stroop Tasks

“…Integrating these elements into the framework is necessary to obtain a holistic understanding of how various factors contribute to the development of expert skills [67]. Fourth, given the small sample size in our study, the results may be subject to selection bias [38] and individual variability [68]. Future research should consider expanding the sample size and accounting for individual differences to strengthen the robustness of the conclusions.…”