Effects of stimulus-response compatibility in mediating expert performance in baseball players

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the baseball players' shorter Go/Nogo reaction time (RT) was influenced by stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effects. To accomplish this purpose, we examined RTs and event-related potential components in three Go/Nogo tasks, manipulating stimulus-response relations. The participants were nine college baseball players (Baseball) and nine college non-baseball players (Control). Task conditions were the following: spatial condition with baseball batting-specific S-R mapping (Spatial-BB) demands response execution or inhibition corresponding to spatial stimulus location. This condition was similar to the stimulus-response relations in baseball batting. The other two tasks demand their response based on the stimulus location or colors. These tasks did not have any baseball-specific stimulus-response relations. As a result of RTs, baseball players revealed shorter RTs in Spatial-BB than other tasks, but the control group showed similar RTs among three tasks. In Go trials, as for the interval between stimulus and lateralized readiness potential (LRP) onset which is the duration to the end of response selection, baseball players had shorter than control in Spatial-BB, whereas P300 latency and the interval between LRP and response did not show any difference between groups or among tasks. In Nogo trials, the augmented P300 amplitude of baseball players at frontal (Fz) was observed in Spatial-BB. The P300 amplitude in Nogo trials is often interpreted as the strength of inhibition. These results indicated that the facilitation of RTs in baseball players is likely due to a faster response selection and stronger inhibition caused by SRC effects in relation to specific S-R mapping.