Abstract
Although an increasing interest in vision training for sport performance, whether it may have a transfer to sport-specific skills and whether such transfer could be mediated by cognition remain open issues. To enlighten this point, we tested the effect of 6-weeks sport vision training programmes (requiring generic or volleyball-specific motor actions) in non-sport-specific context compared to a third group performing traditional volleyball training in sport-specific context. Fifty-one female volleyball players were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Before and after training period subjects were tested on accuracy of volleyball-specific skills and cognitive performance (clinical reaction time, executive control, perceptual speed). Accuracy of volleyball-specific skills improved after traditional volleyball training with respect to the vision training groups. Conversely, vision training groups improved cognitive performance (clinical reaction time, executive control and perceptual speed), as compared to traditional volleyball training group. Our results have shown that vision training in non-sport-specific context (both generic or with specific motor actions) improved cognitive performance, but seems to be less effective for improving sport-specific skills. These evidences suggest that environment in which exercises were performed plays a key role to improve perception and action in sport-specific skills, supporting the ecological approach to sport learning.
Highlights
An increasing interest in vision training for sport performance, whether it may have a transfer to sport-specific skills and whether such transfer could be mediated by cognition remain open issues
The effect of training intervention programmes on setting, serving and passing accuracy is shown in Fig. 1, together with pairwise comparisons
Least significant difference (LSD) post hoc analysis showed that CSSG improved in setting accuracy from pre to post (p = 0.023, ES = 0.89, large), whereas vision training sport-specific group (VSSG) (ES = 0.59, medium) and vision training group (VG) (ES = 0.77, medium) did not
Summary
An increasing interest in vision training for sport performance, whether it may have a transfer to sport-specific skills and whether such transfer could be mediated by cognition remain open issues. Our results have shown that vision training in non-sport-specific context (both generic or with specific motor actions) improved cognitive performance, but seems to be less effective for improving sport-specific skills. These evidences suggest that environment in which exercises were performed plays a key role to improve perception and action in sport-specific skills, supporting the ecological approach to sport learning. While the game develops in relatively unpredictable and changing contexts, players must maintain their focus on the ball but monitor the activities and positions of multiple players simultaneously (both opponents and teammates), planning and executing motor actions In this way, training of visual skills has aroused the interest of sport scientists and coaches. Participants had to respond with simple ocular adjustments, which in some cases were combined with simple motor actions, such as pointing or touching targets[4]
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