Skill and experience impact neural activity during global and local biological motion processing.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Sports Science
• Perception

Background:

• Biological motion perception relies on global or local processing.
• Parietal lobe activity (alpha and beta power) is linked to static perception.
• Skill level influences how individuals process motion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how soccer skill affects behavioral and neural responses to degraded motion information.
• To differentiate global versus local motion processing in skilled and less skilled players.
• To examine the role of parietal alpha and beta power in motion perception.

Main Methods:

• Skilled (N=21) and less skilled (N=19) soccer players viewed temporally occluded penalty kicks.
• Viewing conditions included normal, blurred (degraded local), and hips-only (degraded global) occlusion.
• Electroencephalography (EEG) measured parietal alpha and beta power.

Main Results:

• Skilled players were more accurate overall but both groups struggled with degraded conditions.
• Skilled players showed reduced parietal beta power in the hips-only condition, indicating global processing.
• Spatial occlusion (hips-only) led to increased beta-alpha power, lower beta, and lower alpha, suggesting a shift to local processing.

Conclusions:

• Soccer skill and experience significantly influence biological motion processing strategies.
• Skilled players may rely more on global motion cues, while spatial occlusion shifts processing towards local cues.
• Parietal neural activity (alpha and beta power) reflects these skill-dependent and condition-dependent processing shifts.