Effect of shooting experience on executive function: differences between experts and novices.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Sports Science
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Executive function (EF) is crucial for human action control.
• Shooting, a closed motor skill, demands high mental intensity and anti-interference.
• The impact of closed exercises like shooting on EF is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the executive function (EF) of shooting athletes.
• To compare the EF of novice shooters, expert shooters, and a control group.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an expert-novice paradigm and the Flanker task.
• Assigned participants into novice, expert, or control groups based on experience.
• Compared reaction time (RT) and accuracy across groups.

Main Results:

• Non-athletes (control group) had longer RTs than novices on simple tasks.
• Experts and novices outperformed the control group in RT on complex tasks at specific intervals (300-400 ms ISIs).

Conclusions:

• Shooters possess superior anti-interference abilities due to self-control in closed motor skills.
• This proficiency is linked to reserved task response time, not task type.