Automatic detection of peripheral stimuli in shooters and handball players: an event-related potential study.
This study examined the practice-related sensitivity of automatic change detection. The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials was compared in handball players and in sport shooters. Whereas effective performance in handball requires processing of a wide visual field, effective performance in shooting requires concentration to a narrow field. Thus, we hypothesized larger sensitivity to peripheral stimuli violating the regularity of sequential stimulation in handball players. Participants performed a tracking task, while task-irrelevant checkerboard patterns (a frequent and an infrequent type) were presented in the lateral parts of the visual field. We analyzed the vMMN, a signature of automatic detection of violating sequential regularity, and sensory components (P1, N1, and P2). We obtained larger vMMN in the handball players' group indicating larger sensitivity to peripheral stimuli. These results suggest the plasticity of the automatic visual processing, i.e., it can adapt to sport-specific demands, and this can be captured even in a short experimental session in the laboratory.
['Petro|Bela|B|http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9939-1678', 'Lénárt|Ágota|Á|', 'Gaál|Zsófia Anna|ZA|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6615-5393', 'Kojouharova|Petia|P|http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6315-4822', 'Kökény|Tibor|T|http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6960-1363', 'Ökrös|Csaba|C|', 'Czigler|István|I|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1661-3808']
D001921:Brain D004569:Electroencephalography D005071:Evoked Potentials D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual D006801:Humans D010775:Photic Stimulation D014796:Visual Perception
Handball Automatic change detection Visual mismatch negativity Shooting Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) Peripheral visual sensitivity