Dataset Information

Factors affecting athletes' motor behavior after the observation of scenes of cooperation and competition in competitive sport: the effect of sport attitude.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

This study delineated how observing sports scenes of cooperation or competition modulated an action of interaction, in expert athletes, depending on their specific sport attitude.

Method

In a kinematic study, athletes were divided into two groups depending on their attitude toward teammates (cooperative or competitive). Participants observed sport scenes of cooperation and competition (basketball, soccer, water polo, volleyball, and rugby) and then they reached for, picked up, and placed an object on the hand of a conspecific (giving action). Mixed-design ANOVAs were carried out on the mean values of grasping-reaching parameters.

Results

Data showed that the type of scene observed as well as the athletes' attitude affected reach-to-grasp actions to give. In particular, the cooperative athletes were speeded when they observed scenes of cooperation compared to when they observed scenes of competition.

Discussion

Participants were speeded when executing a giving action after observing actions of cooperation. This occurred only when they had a cooperative attitude. A match between attitude and intended action seems to be a necessary prerequisite for observing an effect of the observed type of scene on the performed action. It is possible that the observation of scenes of competition activated motor strategies which interfered with the strategies adopted by the cooperative participants to execute a cooperative (giving) sequence.

SUBMITTER: Stefani ED

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4623160 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Factors affecting athletes' motor behavior after the observation of scenes of cooperation and competition in competitive sport: the effect of sport attitude.

Stefani Elisa De ED De Marco Doriana D Gentilucci Maurizio M

Frontiers in psychology 20151028

<h4>Aim</h4>This study delineated how observing sports scenes of cooperation or competition modulated an action of interaction, in expert athletes, depending on their specific sport attitude.<h4>Method</h4>In a kinematic study, athletes were divided into two groups depending on their attitude toward teammates (cooperative or competitive). Participants observed sport scenes of cooperation and competition (basketball, soccer, water polo, volleyball, and rugby) and then they reached for, picked up, ...[more]

PMID: 26579031

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Project description:What is the role of ipsilateral motor and premotor areas in motor learning? One view is that ipsilateral activity suppresses contralateral motor cortex and, accordingly, that inhibiting ipsilateral regions can improve motor learning. Alternatively, the ipsilateral motor cortex may play an active role in the control and/or learning of unilateral hand movements. We approached this question by applying double-blind bihemispheric transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over both contralateral and ipsilateral motor cortex in a between-group design during 4 d of unimanual explicit sequence training in human participants. Independently of whether the anode was placed over contralateral or ipsilateral motor cortex, bihemispheric stimulation yielded substantial performance gains relative to unihemispheric or sham stimulation. This performance advantage appeared to be supported by plastic changes in both hemispheres. First, we found that behavioral advantages generalized strongly to the untrained hand, suggesting that tDCS strengthened effector-independent representations. Second, functional imaging during speed-matched execution of trained sequences conducted 48 h after training revealed sustained, polarity-independent increases in activity in both motor cortices relative to the sham group. These results suggest a cooperative rather than competitive interaction of the two motor cortices during skill learning and suggest that bihemispheric brain stimulation during unimanual skill learning may be beneficial because it harnesses plasticity in the ipsilateral hemisphere.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many neurorehabilitation approaches are based on the idea that is beneficial to boost excitability in the contralateral hemisphere while attenuating that of the ipsilateral cortex to reduce interhemispheric inhibition. We observed that bihemispheric transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with the excitatory anode either over contralateral or ipsilateral motor cortex facilitated motor learning nearly twice as strongly as unihemispheric tDCS. These increases in motor learning were accompanied by increases in fMRI activation in both motor cortices that outlasted the stimulation period, as well as increased generalization to the untrained hand. Collectively, our findings suggest a cooperative rather than a competitive role of the hemispheres and imply that it is most beneficial to harness plasticity in both hemispheres in neurorehabilitation of motor deficits.

Dataset Information

Factors affecting athletes' motor behavior after the observation of scenes of cooperation and competition in competitive sport: the effect of sport attitude.

Aim

Method

Results

Discussion

Publications

Factors affecting athletes' motor behavior after the observation of scenes of cooperation and competition in competitive sport: the effect of sport attitude.

Similar Datasets

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