Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the sports intelligence factors specialized to sports giftedness by examining the difference in cognitive functions between sports gifted and general children. Participants were thirty-one sports gifted and thirty general children of the same age. Sports intelligence was evaluated by information processing speed, visual-spatial ability, cognitive flexibility and executive function. Simple, choice, and whole body response time tests were used to measure information processing speed, trail-making test to measure visual-spatial ability and cognitive flexibility, and flanker test to measure inhibitory control of executive function. As the result, relative to general students, sport gifted children showed faster whole-body response time. The score obtained by subtracting simple reaction time from whole body reaction time in sport gifted children was not only lower than that of general children, but also showed a negative(-) score, indicating that reaction using gross muscle was faster than the reaction using fine muscle in sports gifted children. The sports gifted children showed lower errors during visual-spatial test. The rapid information processing speed of movement using whole body and the accuracy of visual-spatial performance seem to be cognitive characteristics of sports giftedness.
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