Abstract
It is the main goal of this study to investigate the visual-spatial cognition in male soccer players. Forty males (20 soccer players and 20 non-athletes) solved a chronometric mental rotation task with both cubed and embodied figures (human figures, body postures). The results confirm previous results that all participants had a lower mental rotation speed for cube figures compared to embodied figures and a higher error rate for cube figures, but only at angular disparities greater than 90°. It is a new finding that soccer–players showed a faster reaction time for embodied stimuli. Because rotation speed did not differ between soccer-players and non-athletes this finding cannot be attributed to the mental rotation process itself but instead to differences in one of the following processes which are involved in a mental rotation task: the encoding process, the maintanence of readiness, or the motor process. The results are discussed against the background of the influence on longterm physical activity on mental rotation and the context of embodied cognition.
Highlights
It is the main goal of this study to investigate the visual-spatial cognition in male soccer players, which has not been investigated until now
First of all this study shows a faster reaction time for embodied stimuli in soccer players compared to non-athletes
This effect could not be shown by analyzing error rates across angular disparities or mental rotation speeds but was evident when analyzing the reaction time for the angular disparity of 0u
Summary
It is the main goal of this study to investigate the visual-spatial cognition in male soccer players, which has not been investigated until now Up to this point studies exist which are concerned with the perceptual-cognitive skills of sports-experts, for example attentional skills [1], visual-search behavior [2] or memory performance [3]. Mental rotation describes the ability and the process of imagining how an object appears if it is rotated from its original position [7] This ability is well investigated in several fields including the study of gender differences [8], developmental psychology [9], neuroscience [10], and general psychology [11,12]. Stages 4 and 5 entail working memory processes as a part of executive functions
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