In their European Journal of Neuroscience article, the researchers explain that, in general, people use their own motor system to make predictions about the movements of other people. They investigated whether a similar process occurs when expert athletes make predictions about the movements of other players, as though they had a way to anticipate their opponents’ next move.
Abreu and colleagues presented expert basketball players and nonathletes with footage of professional basketball players shooting free throws. The films were cut short before the outcome of the throw could be seen, and participants predicted whether the throw would land in or out of the basket. While watching the films and selecting the outcome, participants underwent fMRI scans. Abreu and colleagues found that, as expected, experts were better at predicting the outcome of the free throw.
The researchers also found that neural activation was similar for experts and nonexperts in the brain’s fronto-parietal action-observation network, a neural network that enables you to predict the actions of people around you, on the basis of your own motor system.
Strikingly, for the expert basketball players, there was greater neural activation in the extrastriate body area, an area in the occipital lobe associated with perceiving human bodies, and a greater activation of the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, the right anterior insular cortex, and posterior insular cortex. Greater activation in these areas suggests that experts might become aware of the prediction errors they are making, and may rely more on bodily cues and bodily awareness than a novice would.
Taken together, the psychological and neural evidence indicates that a hallmark of sporting genius is not just a well-honed body, but also a well-honed mind, capable of attending to key information, generating fast and accurate predictions, and using these to guide movement.
In addition to possessing superior perceptual abilities, many sports athletes need to be able to think creatively and decisively, making decisions on the fly, under extreme time pressure. In a series of studies, Dr. Torbjörn Vestberg and colleagues, from the Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, Sweden, examined the role that executive functions play in facilitating expert sports performance.
Executive functions are the capacities that allow us to think and act; including planning, problem solving, decision-making, flexible thinking, and multitasking. In a PLOS One study, Vestberg examined whether or not executive function is associated with successful performance among young, elite soccer players.
Participants underwent two sets of tests, with one set measuring what Vestberg calls “lower-level” cognitive capacities, such as processing speed, attention, and working memory, and the other set of tests measuring “higher-level” cognitive capacities, such as creativity, response inhibition, and cognitive flexibility.
Vestberg and colleagues found that elite soccer players performed better than the normal population on both sets of tests, suggesting that superior executive function is associated with successful soccer performance.
Moreover, in this particular study, Vestberg and colleagues found that superior executive function was positively correlated with the number of goals or goal-assists players made. However, further research is needed to determine whether or not superior executive function develops as a result of training and sporting experience, or whether people with superior executive function are predisposed to athletic brilliance.
Either way, the research paints an intriguing picture of elite athletes as being highly cognitively skilled, able to process large amounts of information, rapidly, and able to think flexibly and creatively on demand. It now seems that the hallmark of sporting genius is the intricate interplay of physical prowess with an equal dose of extraordinary perceptual and cognitive ability.
This article is updated from its initial publication in Brain World Magazine.
