Temporal and spectral electrooculographic features in a discrete precision task.

This study aimed to evaluate the utility and applicability of electrooculography (EOG) when studying ocular activity during complex motor behavior. Due to its lower spatial resolution relative to eye tracking (ET), it is unclear whether EOG can provide valid and accurate temporal measurements such as the duration of the Quiet Eye (QE), that is the uninterrupted dwell time on the visual target prior to and during action. However, because of its greater temporal resolution, EOG is better suited for temporal-spectral decomposition, a technique that allows us to distinguish between lower and higher frequency activity as a function of time. Sixteen golfers of varying expertise (novices to experts) putted 60 balls to a 4-m distant target on a flat surface while we recorded EOG, ET, performance accuracy, and putter kinematics. Correlational and discrepancy analyses confirmed that EOG yielded valid and accurate QE measurements, but only when using certain processing parameters. Nested cross-validation indicated that, among a set of ET and EOG temporal and spectral oculomotor features, EOG power was the most useful when predicting performance accuracy through robust regression. Follow-up cross-validation and correlational analyses revealed that more accurate performance was preceded by diminished lower-frequency activity immediately before movement initiation and elevated higher-frequency activity during movement recorded from the horizontal channel. This higher-frequency activity was also found to accompany a smoother movement execution. This study validates EOG algorithms (code provided) for measuring temporal parameters and presents a novel approach to extracting temporal and spectral oculomotor features during complex motor behavior.

Napping behaviour, daytime sleepiness, and arousal in high performance athletes and non-athlete controls.

Napping offers a strategy to manage sleep, aid recovery and enhance performance in elite sport. However, relatively little research attention has focussed on the natural history of athlete napping or tested the widely held assumption that athlete napping is mainly a consequence of degraded night-time sleep. Within a sample of 158 team (n = 76) and individual (n = 80) sport athletes, and 82 non-athlete controls, we analysed napping behaviour in relation to sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and pre-sleep somatic and cognitive arousal. There was no significant association between athlete/non-athlete status and the prevalence, frequency, or duration of naps. Comparisons of athlete nappers and non-nappers found no significant differences in sleep quantity or quality. While nap propensity was significantly related to higher daytime sleepiness, this influence was moderated or augmented by levels of pre-sleep cognitive arousal. For some nappers, those with higher levels of arousal may need to be sleepier than those with lower levels of arousal in order to successfully initiate daytime sleep. Approximately 50% of athletes did not nap. If the benefits of athlete napping are to be fully exploited, the needs of this substantial group for whom napping may be problematic should be recognised and addressed.

Action outcome probability influences the size of the head-fake effect in basketball.

Both kinematic and contextual information (e.g., action outcome probability) play a significant role in action anticipation. However, few researchers have examined the reciprocal influence of the two types of information and fewer still have investigated this issue for deceptive actions in sports. In the present study, we investigate the impact of action outcome probability on the processing of deceptive kinematic cues for the head fake in basketball. We manipulated the probability of the action outcome to either pass the ball to the left or to the right side (i.e., 75%, 50%, 25%) and examined how this contextual information affected the influence of head orientation on pass direction judgments. Outcome probability information was either provided explicitly (Experiment 1) or implicitly (Experiment 2). Both experiments indicated an increased head-fake effect with increasing outcome probability. Moreover, the bias to respond in line with the player's head direction increased linearly with outcome probability. Also, discriminability between deceptive and genuine actions was poorer for high outcome probability (75%) associated with head orientation than for the 25% and 50% values. Last, a stronger response bias toward the higher probability side for deceptive trials than for genuine trials was only significant when the outcome probability information was processed implicitly in Experiment 2. The results of this study fit well with recent literature on contextual information in action prediction and are discussed in light of confirmation bias and signal detection theory.

Alcohol Use Predicts Face Perception Impairments and Difficulties in Face Recognition.

Background: Risky alcohol use is related to a variety of cognitive impairments, including memory and visuo-perceptual difficulties. Remarkably, no prior work has assessed whether usage of alcohol can predict difficulties perceiving facial identity. Objectives: Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether riskier alcohol consumption predicted impairments in face perception and self-reported difficulties in face recognition. Results: Participants (N = 239, male = 77) were over 18 years old and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Alcohol use was assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), while face recognition difficulties were determined by the 20-item Prosopagnosia Index questionnaire (PI20). A subsample of participants (N = 126, male = 51) completed the Cambridge Face Perception task (CFPT) to assess their face perception ability. Multiple linear regressions showed significant models of prediction on both face perception and face recognition when considering AUDIT score and age as predictors. Conclusion: This study suggested, for the first time, that risky alcohol use predicts both poorer visuo-perceptual processing for faces and self-reported difficulties in face recognition.

Timing a fake punch: Inhibitory effects in a boxing-specific spatial attention task.

The ability to respond quickly and accurately to spatial cues is of great importance to performance on any task where quick decision-making is required. The two main effects of spatial attention are priming, when a response to a target is facilitated after being cued at the same location, and inhibition of return (IOR), when the response to the target is slower to the cued area. Whether priming or IOR occurs is largely dependent on the length of the interval between the cue and the target. To determine whether these effects are relevant to dueling sports with deceptive actions we created a boxing-specific task that mimicked combinations of feints and punches. Altogether, we recruited 20 boxers and 20 non-boxers and found significantly longer reaction times to a punch thrown on the same side as a fake punch after a 600 ms interval, consistent with the IOR effect. We also found a moderate positive correlation between years of training and the magnitude of the IOR effect. This latter finding indicates that even athletes trained to avoid deception can be as susceptible as novices if the timing of the feint is right. Finally, our approach highlights the benefits of studying IOR using more sport specific settings, broadening the scope of the field.

Expert Views on Evidence-Based Classification for Goalball: A Delphi Study.

Para sport classification aims to minimize the impact of impairments on the outcome of competition. The International Paralympic Committee requires classification systems to be evidence based and sport specific, yet the sport of goalball uses a structure that is not supported by evidence demonstrating its legitimacy for competition. This study aimed to establish expert opinions on how a sport-specific system of classification should be structured in the sport of goalball. Using a three-round Delphi survey, 30 international experts expressed their views across topics linked to goalball classification. Participants were divided as to whether the current system fulfills the aim to minimize the impact of impairment on competition. Most felt that less impairment should be required to compete but that the one-class structure should remain. Experts identified measures of visual function that should be considered and 15 core components of individual goalball performance. Findings constitute a crucial first step toward evidence-based classification in goalball.

Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study.

Introduction: The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure. Methods: International experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense; (ii) Competitive Sport; (iii) Civilian High-stakes; and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance. Results: Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention; (2) Cognitive Control-Performance Monitoring; (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems-Arousal; (4) Cognitive Control-Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance; (5) Cognitive Control-Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression; (6) Working memory-Flexible Updating; (7) Working memory-Active Maintenance; (8) Perception and Understanding of Self-Self-knowledge; (9) Working memory-Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested-Shifting. Discussion: Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization.

Earlier detection facilitates skilled responses to deceptive actions.

High-skilled and recreational rugby players were placed in a semi-immersive CAREN Lab environment to examine susceptibility to, and detection of, deception. To achieve this, a broad window of seven occlusion times was used in which participants responded to life-size video clips of an opposing player 'cutting' left or right, with or without a deceptive sidestep. Participants made full-body responses to 'intercept' the player and gave a verbal judgement of the opponent's final running direction. Response kinematic and kinetic data were recorded using three-dimensional motion capture cameras and force plates, respectively. Based on response accuracy, the results were separated into deception susceptibility and deception detection windows then signal detection analysis was used to calculate indices of discriminability between genuine and deceptive actions (d') and judgement bias (c). Analysis revealed that high-skilled and low-skilled players were similarly susceptible to deception; however, high-skilled players detected deception earlier in the action sequence, which enabled them to make more effective behavioural responses to deceptive actions.

Concern about falling is associated with segmental control when turning in older adults.

BACKGROUND: Healthy young adults typically exhibit a progressive 'top-down' reorientation of body segments (i.e., head, trunk, then pelvis) during turning. This behaviour is less evident in older adults at risk of falling, who often reduce angular displacement between body segments during turns. The potential functional and psychological contributors to this so-called 'en-bloc' turning strategy are not yet understood. RESEARCH QUESTION: Are there associations between concern about falling and variables representing en-bloc turning (i.e., increased coupling between body segments)? METHODS: Twenty-one older adults were assessed while turning during an adaptive walking task. We collected data from markers forming the head, trunk, and pelvis segments, while gait velocity throughout the turn was calculated from a sternum marker. We correlated several variables with concern about falling alone, as well as while controlling for functional balance ability. RESULTS: Correlation analyses revealed that concern about falling was related to en-bloc turning strategies and slower gait velocity throughout the turn, when analysed independently of functional balance. When controlling for balance ability, en-bloc turning strategies between the head and trunk, as well as the head and pelvis, remained significantly associated with concern about falling. SIGNIFICANCE: Findings offer an insight into the potential role that psychological characteristics may have in determining older adults' turning behaviour and associated risk of falling.

Differences in the attitudes to sport psychology consulting between individual and team sport athletes.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present study was to investigate how an athlete's participation in either an individual or team sport is related to their attitude toward sport psychology consulting and their willingness to consult a sport psychology practitioner. METHOD: The Sport Psychology Attitudes-Revised form (SPA-R) (Martin, et al., Sport Psychol 16:272-90, 2020) was completed by 120 athletes from individual and team sports. A 2 (Type of sport: individual and team) × 2 (Gender) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted with attitudes towards sport psychology as dependent variables. To identify attitudes that accentuated the differences related to type of sport, follow-up univariate analyses were performed. RESULTS: Results revealed that overall athletes involved in individual sports reported more positive attitudes towards sport psychology consulting than athletes involved in team sports. In particular, the athletes involved in individual sports were more likely to have greater confidence in sport psychology consulting. The findings also show that gender may mediate this association, indicated by a nearly significant two-way interaction effect for gender and type of sport (individual versus team) regarding confidence in sport psychology. The source of this marginal result was a larger effect of sport type for females than for males. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study imply that athletes involved in individual sports are more likely to have positive attitudes towards sport psychology compared to athletes competing in team-based sports, with females more likely to view sport psychology positively than compared to their male counterparts. The results may go some way to assist sport psychologists to understand and address athletes' concerns and to improve receptivity to sport psychology services.

Howzat! Expert umpires use a gaze anchor to overcome the processing demands of leg before wicket decisions.

Cricket umpires are required to make high-pressure, match-changing decisions based on multiple complex information sources under severe temporal constraints. The aim of this study was to examine the decision-making and perceptual-cognitive differences between expert and novice cricket umpires when judging leg before wicket (LBW) decisions. Twelve expert umpires and 19 novice umpires were fitted with an eye-tracker before viewing video-based LBW appeals. Dependent variables were radial error (cm), number of fixations, average fixation duration (ms), final fixation duration (ms), and final fixation location (%). Expert umpires were significantly more accurate at adjudicating on all aspects of the LBW law, compared to the novice umpires (p < .05). The expert umpires' final fixation prior to ball-pad contact was directed significantly more towards the stumps (p < .05), whereas the novice umpires directed their final fixation significantly more towards a good length (p < .05). These data suggest that expert umpires utilize specialized perceptual-cognitive skills, consisting of a gaze anchor on the stumps in order to overcome the processing demands of the task. These data have implications for the training of current and aspiring umpires in order to enhance the accuracy of LBW decision-making across all levels of the cricketing pyramid.

Reflection-impulsivity in athletes: A cross-sectional and longitudinal investigation.

Reflection-impulsivity is a dimension of cognitive or decision-making style. We conducted two quasi-experimental studies to examine reflection-impulsivity in athletes using an information sampling task. In Study 1 (n = 108; Mage = 22.7 ± SDage = 1.42; 50% female), we used a cross-sectional design to compare performance across athletic expertise (super-elite, elite, amateur, novice or non-athlete) and sport type (external-paced or self-paced). In Study 2 (Time 1 n = 106; Mage = 21.32 ± SDage = 5.77; 53% female and Time 2 n = 64; Mage = 21.19 ± SDage = 5.12; 44% female), we examined changes in reflection-impulsivity across a 16-week playing season. Study 1 showed more accurate and more efficient performance as athletic expertise increased. Study 2 revealed better effectiveness and efficiency following sport participation, a 16-week playing season, most notably in elite-level performers. No sport-type differences were noted. Taken together, the studies demonstrate an association between reflection-impulsivity and athletic expertise, while also providing evidence that competitive sports participation leads to efficient decisions based on reflection, without sacrificing accuracy, which is often a consequence of impulsive decision-making.

Seeing the Bigger Picture: Susceptibility to, and Detection of, Deception.

An extended time window was used to examine susceptibility to, and detection of, deception in rugby union. High- and low-skilled rugby players judged the final running direction of an opponent "cutting" left or right, with or without a deceptive sidestep. Each trial was occluded at one of eight time points relative to the footfall after the initial (genuine or fake) reorientation. Based on response accuracy, the results were separated into deception susceptibility and deception detection windows. Signal-detection analysis was used to calculate the discriminability of genuine and deceptive actions (d') and the response bias (c). High-skilled players were less susceptible to deception and better able to detect when they had been deceived, accompanied by a reduced bias toward perceiving all actions as genuine. By establishing the time window in which players become deceived, it will now be possible to identify the kinematic sources that drive deception.

Hill on a mountaintop: A longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis of the relative age effect in competitive youth football.

The aim of this study was to examine the origin and persistence of the relative age effect (RAE) in competitive youth football. To examine its origin, birthdates of 121 category one Premier League academy players recruited over 6 years were compared with 691 Under 8 (U8) players in one of the regional grassroots leagues from which academy players are selected. To examine the persistence of the RAE we conducted a longitudinal comparison of retention rates in early-birth and late-birth academy players from U9 to U15, and made a cross-sectional comparison of birthdate distributions from U7 to U18 in 10,857 regional league players. The results revealed birthdate asymmetry in both the academy and grassroots players but a much larger RAE in the academy. Longitudinal analysis revealed that the cumulative probability of retention at the academy was higher for early-birth than late-birth players. A small to medium RAE persisted across grassroots football age groups though it declined somewhat from U15 to U18. The implication of these results for academy player recruitment is discussed.

Stepovers and Signal Detection: Response Sensitivity and Bias in the Differentiation of Genuine and Deceptive Football Actions.

The ability to differentiate genuine and deceptive actions was examined using a combination of spatial and temporal occlusion to examine sensitivity to lower body, upper body, and full body sources of visual information. High-skilled and low-skilled association football players judged whether a player genuinely intended to take the ball to the participant's left or right or intended to step over the ball then take it in the other direction. Signal detection analysis was used to calculate measures of sensitivity (d') in differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and bias (c) toward judging an action to be genuine or deceptive. Analysis revealed that high-skilled players had higher sensitivity than low-skilled players and this was consistent across all spatial occlusion conditions. Low-skilled players were more biased toward judging actions to be genuine. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that accuracy on deceptive trials in the lower body and full body conditions most accurately classified participants as high-skilled or low-skilled. The results highlight the value of using signal detection analysis in studies of deceptive actions. They suggest that information from the lower body or upper body was sufficient for differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and that global information concurrently derived from these sources was not necessary to support the expert advantage.

The role of contextual information during skilled anticipation.

In dynamic, temporally constrained tasks, individuals often need to anticipate what will happen next prior to information becoming available within the environment. In such situations, the availability of contextual information can facilitate anticipation, often in conjunction with postural information. While many researchers have identified the specific sources of postural information facilitating anticipation, few have investigated the specific sources of contextual information employed. In two experiments, we presented skilled and less-skilled tennis players with animations of rallies from real matches that omitted access to postural information from the opponent, constraining participants to anticipate based on contextual information alone. In Experiment 1, participants anticipated the outcome of an opponent's shot under three conditions in which the sequence length (i.e., number of shots in a rally) preceding the same occluded shot was varied. Participants anticipated shot direction more accurately when the preceding shot sequence was presented than not. In Experiment 2, we presented animations that depicted the ball, the players, or both, in either dynamic or still form. Those conditions in which only the ball was depicted yielded the lowest response accuracy scores. It appears that information from the player and ball motion is required to provide the context under which skilled performers can consciously pick up and utilise information to anticipate more accurately than their less-skilled counterparts.

Contextual information and perceptual-cognitive expertise in a dynamic, temporally-constrained task.

Skilled performers extract and process postural information from an opponent during anticipation more effectively than their less-skilled counterparts. In contrast, the role and importance of contextual information in anticipation has received only minimal attention. We evaluate the importance of contextual information in anticipation and examine the underlying perceptual-cognitive processes. We present skilled and less-skilled tennis players with normal video or animated footage of the same rallies. In the animated condition, sequences were created using player movement and ball trajectory data, and postural information from the players was removed, constraining participants to anticipate based on contextual information alone. Participants judged ball bounce location of the opponent's final occluded shot. The 2 groups were more accurate than chance in both display conditions with skilled being more accurate than less-skilled (Exp. 1) participants. When anticipating based on contextual information alone, skilled participants employed different gaze behaviors to less-skilled counterparts and provided verbal reports of thoughts which were indicative of more thorough evaluation of contextual information (Exp. 2). Findings highlight the importance of both postural and contextual information in anticipation and indicate that perceptual-cognitive expertise is underpinned by processes that facilitate more effective processing of contextual information, in the absence of postural information. (PsycINFO Database Record