DOI:10.6129/CJP.202109_63(3).0003
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2021, Vol.63, No.3, 265-284
An Investigation of Information Processing Efficiency in Elite Athletes via Workload Capacity
Chih-Chun Lin（Institute of Physical Education, Health & Leisure Studies, National Cheng Kung University）；Chien-Wei Liang（Office of Physical Education and Sport, National Chung Hsing University）；Ming-Yan Juang（Department of Ball Sport, National Taiwan University of Sport）；Cheng-Ta Yang（Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University；Institute of Allied Health Sciences, National Cheng Kung University）；Chun-Hao Wang（Institute of Physical Education, Health & Leisure Studies, National Cheng Kung University）
Abstract
Previous studies have demonstrated superior cognitive function and information processing efficiency in elite athletes. However, most researchers drew such conclusions only by means of evaluating mean reaction times (RTs), which cannot be used to directly infer information processing efficiency in athletes. This impedes research development and practical cognitive science applications in the field of sports science. Here, we investigated differences in information processing capacity between elite soccer players and non-athletes by comparing mean reaction time and workload capacity evaluated using Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) (Townsend & Nozawa, 1995). A total of 27 first division soccer players and 26 controls from the general student population took part in the experiment. All participants were matched for weight, height, and age. A double-dot redundant-target task was adopted to examine the effect of visuo-spatial attention between the two groups. Further, event-related potential (ERP) was employed to explore the neural mechanisms underlying the responses. The behavioral findings demonstrated that soccer players exhibited faster reaction time than the controls, while no significant between-groups differences in workload capacity were found. In terms of ERPs, the results revealed a significantly shorter N1 latency for the soccer players compared to the controls, while such an effect was not observed for N1 amplitude. According to these findings, athletes practicing strategic sports may have superior processing speed while performing a visuo-spatial detection task. However, such cognitive superiority might not be associated with information processing capacity in this case. On the other hand, greater processing speed for soccer players may be inferred from the ERP results, which may explain why they had faster visuo-motor responses when performing the double-dot detection task. To summarize, this is study re-examined the cognitive superiority of athletes using a novel approach (i.e., SFT) along with ERP, and it is expected that this work may inspire researchers to further understand the role of cognition in sports from different perspectives.
Keywords: event-related potentials, strategic athletes, systems factorial technology, workload capacity
