Selective behavioral, computational, and neural efficiency in executive function among open-skill athletes

Executive function is critical for goal-directed behavior, and open-skill sport experience involves cognitively demanding environments that require rapid perception, decision-making, and action control. This study examined behavioral, computational, and neural differences in executive function between open-skill athletes and matched non-athlete controls. Forty-four open-skill athletes and 43 controls completed a task-switching paradigm, the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT), and an N-back task. Open-skill athletes responded significantly faster than controls in the task-switching paradigm and MSIT while maintaining comparable accuracy, with no significant group difference in N-back performance. Hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling (hDDM) showed that athletes had shorter non-decision times during task switching and lower decision thresholds during MSIT. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed reduced task-related activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right cerebellar Crus I/II during task switching, and in the left inferior temporal gyrus during MSIT. Exploratory Bayesian mediation analyses indicated possible indirect effects involving task-related activation, specific DDM parameters, and response time; these analyses were interpreted as exploratory rather than causal. Together, the findings are consistent with a selective efficiency account, suggesting that open-skill athletes show task-specific behavioral, computational, and neural efficiency patterns relative to non-athlete controls.