Exposing an "Intangible" Cognitive Skill Among Collegiate Football Players: III. Enhanced Reaction Control to Motion.

Scott A Wylie,Nelleke C Van Wouwe,Brandon A Ally,Joseph S Neimat,Wery P M Van Den Wildenberg,Theodore R Bashore

doi:10.3389/fspor.2019.00051

Abstract

Football is played in a dynamic, often unpredictable, visual environment in which players are challenged to process and respond with speed and flexibility to critical incoming stimulus events. To meet this challenge, we hypothesize that football players possess, in conjunction with their extraordinary physical skills, exceptionally proficient executive cognitive control systems that optimize response execution. It is particularly important for these systems to be proficient at coordinating directional reaction and counter-reaction decisions to the very rapid lateral movements routinely made by their opponents during a game. Despite the importance of this executive skill to successful on-field performance, it has not been studied in football players. To fill this void, we compared the performances of Division I college football players (n = 525) and their non-athlete age counterparts (n = 40) in a motion-based stimulus-response compatibility task that assessed their proficiency at executing either compatible (in the same direction) or incompatible (in the opposite direction) lateralized reactions to a target's lateral motion. We added an element of decision uncertainty and complexity by giving them either sufficient or insufficient time to preload the response decision rule (i.e., compatible vs. incompatible) prior to the target setting in motion. Overall, football players were significantly faster than non-athlete controls in their choice reactions to a target's lateral motion. The reactions of all participants slowed when issuing incompatible counter-reactions to a target's lateral motion. For football players, this cost was reduced substantially compared to controls when given insufficient time to preload the decision rule, indicating that they exerted more efficient executive control over their reactions and counter-reactions when faced with decision uncertainty at the onset of stimulus motion. We consider putative sources of their advantage in reacting to a target's lateral motion and discuss how these findings advance the hypothesis that football players utilize highly-proficient executive control systems to overcome processing conflicts during motor performance.

Highlights

American football requires reactions to stimulus events that must be executed with exceptional speed, accuracy, and precision
In written agreements with the athletic departments, football programs assumed all responsibilities for athlete consent to complete the protocol, and athletes were informed of the protocol, consented orally, and participated voluntarily, but were not required by the athletic department to sign a written consent
Unlike differences in group and compatibility effects being restricted to reaction times (RT), it is clearly discernible in Figure 1C that there were decided costs of insufficient time to select and load the compatibility decision rule on both response speed and accuracy rate (Decision Load Time [RT, F(1,563) = 1213.66, p < 0.001] [Acc, F(1,563) = 192.10, p < 0.001])

Summary

Introduction

American football requires reactions to stimulus events that must be executed with exceptional speed, accuracy, and precision. It is executing reactions that require extracting critical information from a rapidly-changing chaotic visual environment in which distraction, misdirection, and unpredictability are routinely used by opponents to create momentary conflict and confusion This added layer of processing complexity directly impacts the speed at which a player must process and translate imperative stimulus events into optimal response outputs. Rather than being universally faster at performing basic stimulus-response operations, the executive cognitive control systems of football players more effectively shield stimulus-response processing from the constant barrage of conflicting stimulus inputs and response activations that compete for and interfere with the selection and execution of optimal response decisions. These enhanced cognitive control systems may undergird many of the on-field observations football experts (e.g., coaches, scouts) and fans anecdotally associate with the “intangible” or “instinctual” elements of a football player’s skill set

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