Abstract
ABSTRACTIn sports, fast and accurate execution of movements is required. It has been shown that implicitly learned movements might be less vulnerable than explicitly learned movements to stressful and fast changing circumstances that exist at the elite sports level. The present study provides insight in explicit and implicit motor learning in youth soccer players with different expertise levels. Twenty-seven youth elite soccer players and 25 non-elite soccer players (aged 10–12) performed a serial reaction time task (SRTT). In the SRTT, one of the sequences must be learned explicitly, the other was implicitly learned. No main effect of group was found for implicit and explicit learning on mean reaction time (MRT) and accuracy. However, for MRT, an interaction was found between learning condition, learning phase and group. Analyses showed no group effects for the explicit learning condition, but youth elite soccer players showed better learning in the implicit learning condition. In particular, during implicit motor learning youth elite soccer showed faster MRTs in the early learning phase and earlier reached asymptote performance in terms of MRT. Present findings may be important for sports because children with superior implicit learning abilities in early learning phases may be able to learn more (durable) motor skills in a shorter time period as compared to other children.
Highlights
The main goal of many organisations is to create an environment for young sports talents to optimally develop their performance in a specific sport by providing high level training and coaching and adapted school programmes (Baker, Horton, Robertson-Wilson, & Wall, 2003)
Two elite soccer players and one non-elite soccer player correctly recalled the at least five items of implicit sequence, and these three participants were excluded from further analyses to minimise the influence of explicit knowledge on reaction times in the implicit sequence (Kathmann et al, 2005; Knopman & Nissen, 1991)
Age was significantly related to mean reaction time (MRT) of both the explicit and implicit learning condition only for the first block (r = −.48, p < .001 and r = −.51, p < .001 for the explicit and implicit sequence, respectively), indicating that older children were faster in the first block of both learning conditions
Summary
The main goal of many organisations is to create an environment for young sports talents to optimally develop their performance in a specific sport by providing high level training and coaching and adapted school programmes (Baker, Horton, Robertson-Wilson, & Wall, 2003) This environment is essential for success in sports and is accompanied by high costs and efforts (e.g., Abbott & Collins, 2002; Reilly, Williams, Nevill, & Franks, 2000; Van Hilvoorde, Elling, & Stokvis, 2010). It has been shown that physiological characteristics of sports talents (e.g., sprint performance and endurance capacity) distinguish between expertise levels in sports such as soccer, but do not seem to be predictive for future successful performance later in the career (Carling & Collins, 2014). Psychological factors such as motivation, selfconfidence and concentration have been found to discriminate between expertise levels in sports (e.g., Mahoney, Gabriel, & Perkins, 1987), but it is disputable whether psychological factors predict success in sports (see for a meta-analysis, Rowley, Landers, Kyllo, & Etnier, 1995)
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