Behavioral Measures in a Cognitive-Motor Batting Task Explain Real Game Performance of Top Athletes.

Daiki Nasu,Akemi Kobayashi,Masumi Yamaguchi,Toshitaka Kimura,Makio Kashino,Naoki Saijo

doi:10.3389/fspor.2020.00055

Abstract

Excellent athletic performance in baseball and softball batting is achieved through the momentary cognitive-motor processes. However, in previous studies, cognitive and motor processes are investigated separately. In this study, we focused on the difference in the time of swing onset (a delta onset) during a batting task where 17 elite female softball batters hit balls randomly thrown at two different speeds by pitchers. The delta onset included both cognitive and motor processes because the batters needed to anticipate the ball speed and discriminate their swing motion according to the time-to-contact. Then, we investigated the relationship between the delta onset and the batting outcomes of the batting task, and the relationship between the experimental outcomes and actual batting performance (batting average) over a season. We used path analysis to clarify the structure of the cognitive-motor processes and consequent performance. We found that the batters who had a larger delta onset attained superior batting outcomes (i.e., higher exit velocity and lower miss ratio) in the batting task, and these experimental outcomes explained 67% of the batting average in real games. On the other hand, the cognitive scores (judgement accuracy and rapidity) obtained from a button pressing task, where batters responded to a ball by pressing a button instead of actually swinging, explained only 34% of the batting average. Therefore, our model quantitatively describes the key cognitive-motor structure for athletes and can partially predict a batter's performance in real games. These findings suggest that it is important to employ both cognitive and motor processes in performing tasks, such as this batting task, to properly evaluate a batter's actual ability.

Highlights

Human action is strongly related to cognitive processes such as sensory processing, prediction, and decision making
We investigated the relationship between these experimental batting outcomes and actual batting performance obtained from real games
We investigated the structure of cognitive- motor processes using path analysis based on four explanatory variables: delta onset, exit velocity, miss ratio and batting average (Figure 2)

Summary

Introduction

Human action is strongly related to cognitive processes such as sensory processing, prediction, and decision making These processes closely affect and restrain motor behavior associated with motor planning and execution (Wolpert and Flanagan, 2001). Sports psychology and neuroscience studies have described cognitive processes in athletes, such as the ability to anticipate ball trajectory and/or the opponent’s kinematics (Abernethy, 1990; Paull and Glencross, 1997; Renshaw and Fairweather, 2000), and the parts of the brain activation in the perceptual decision-making processes (Radlo et al, 2001; Muraskin et al, 2015) While these studies focused on experts’ cognitive functions, they examined them in simple and unrealistic environments, where participants reacted by pressing a button while watching a video of a pitcher’s motion or a visual stimulus. These studies showed the importance of both cognitive and motor processes, these were investigated separately

Methods

Results

Conclusion