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Updated: Dec 13, 2025
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Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
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Motor expertise affects the unconscious processing of geometric forms
Jiaxian Geng1, Fanying Meng1,2, Chao Wang3
1Institute of Physical Education, Huzhou University, Huzhou, Zhejiang, China.
Peerj
|July 28, 2020
Summary
Competitive athletes demonstrate superior unconscious information processing in general cognitive tasks, not just sports-specific ones. This motor expertise enhances their ability to process information without conscious awareness, showing a transferable skill.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Motor Expertise
- Unconscious Processing
Background:
- Unconscious information processing is crucial for athletes navigating dynamic environments.
- Previous research indicates athletes excel in sports-specific unconscious processing.
- The generalizability of this advantage to non-sporting cognitive domains remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if motor expertise in athletes enhances unconscious information processing in a general cognitive domain.
- To determine if the benefits of motor expertise extend beyond sports-specific tasks.
- To analyze the transferability of unconscious processing advantages from sport-specific to general cognitive domains.
Main Methods:
- A masked priming task with geometric shapes was administered to competitive athletes and non-athlete controls.
- Participants completed a prime identification task to ensure stimuli were unconsciously processed.
- Reaction times and error rates were analyzed to assess the impact of motor expertise on unconscious processing.
Main Results:
- Athletes responded faster and made fewer errors on congruent trials compared to incongruent trials, indicating a significant unconscious priming effect.
- Non-athletes did not show a significant difference in performance between congruent and incongruent conditions.
- The strength of the unconscious priming effect was greater in athletes than in non-athletes, both for general and sport-specific stimuli.
Conclusions:
- Motor expertise significantly facilitates unconscious processing of general cognitive stimuli like geometric forms.
- The advantage in unconscious information processing associated with motor expertise is transferable from sports-specific to general cognitive domains.
- This suggests a broad impact of motor expertise on cognitive functions beyond immediate athletic performance.
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