Practice Makes Efficient: Cortical Alpha Oscillations Are Associated With Improved Golf Putting Performance

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Motor Learning
• Sports Science

Background:

• Motor skill acquisition leads to improved performance and reduced conscious awareness.
• The psychomotor efficiency hypothesis suggests practice refines neural processes, suppressing irrelevant ones and enhancing relevant ones.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate neurophysiological efficiency changes with practice in a golf putting task.
• To identify factors mediating performance improvements using mediation analyses.

Main Methods:

• Test-retest design with 12 recreational golfers before and after 3 practice sessions.
• Measurements included putting performance, conscious processing, electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha power, and alpha connectivity.
• Mediation analyses were used to link neural changes to performance outcomes.

Main Results:

• Putting performance improved, and conscious processing decreased with practice.
• Performance gains were partly explained by increased alpha power gating and reduced alpha connectivity.
• Neural efficiency involved inhibiting irrelevant cortical regions (temporal) and activating relevant ones (central).

Conclusions:

• Practice enhances psychomotor efficiency in precision aiming tasks.
• Neurophysiological changes, including selective inhibition and functional isolation, underlie performance improvements.
• Conscious processing changes were not directly linked to performance enhancement in this study.