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Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children

The main purpose of this study was to explore the association between the regular practice of open-skill sports (i.e., soccer) and executive control, along with other attentional functions (i.e., alerting and orienting) during preadolescence. The study was conducted on 131 participants (70 non-athle...

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Autores principales: Moratal, Consuelo, Lupiáñez, Juan, Ballester, Rafael, Huertas, Florentino
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235161/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32477207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00761
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author Moratal, Consuelo
Lupiáñez, Juan
Ballester, Rafael
Huertas, Florentino
author_facet Moratal, Consuelo
Lupiáñez, Juan
Ballester, Rafael
Huertas, Florentino
author_sort Moratal, Consuelo
collection PubMed
description The main purpose of this study was to explore the association between the regular practice of open-skill sports (i.e., soccer) and executive control, along with other attentional functions (i.e., alerting and orienting) during preadolescence. The study was conducted on 131 participants (70 non-athletes and 61 soccer players). To measure cognitive performance, participants performed the Attentional Network Test—Interactions (ANT-I) task. Compared to non-athletes, soccer players showed overall faster responses and better executive control (e.g., reduced interference from distractors). Overall, our results provide new empirical evidence supporting the positive association between regular sports practice and cognitive performance, and more specifically executive functions. However, is important to note that the relationship between regular sport practice and cognition is complex and multifactorial. Our findings can be partly explained by the “cardiovascular fitness hypothesis” and the “cognitive component skills approach,” suggesting that an externally paced sport environment with high physical fitness and perceptual–cognitive demands may be an appropriate setting to optimize the development of cognitive functioning during early adolescence.
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spelling pubmed-72351612020-05-29 Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children Moratal, Consuelo Lupiáñez, Juan Ballester, Rafael Huertas, Florentino Front Psychol Psychology The main purpose of this study was to explore the association between the regular practice of open-skill sports (i.e., soccer) and executive control, along with other attentional functions (i.e., alerting and orienting) during preadolescence. The study was conducted on 131 participants (70 non-athletes and 61 soccer players). To measure cognitive performance, participants performed the Attentional Network Test—Interactions (ANT-I) task. Compared to non-athletes, soccer players showed overall faster responses and better executive control (e.g., reduced interference from distractors). Overall, our results provide new empirical evidence supporting the positive association between regular sports practice and cognitive performance, and more specifically executive functions. However, is important to note that the relationship between regular sport practice and cognition is complex and multifactorial. Our findings can be partly explained by the “cardiovascular fitness hypothesis” and the “cognitive component skills approach,” suggesting that an externally paced sport environment with high physical fitness and perceptual–cognitive demands may be an appropriate setting to optimize the development of cognitive functioning during early adolescence. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7235161/ /pubmed/32477207 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00761 Text en Copyright © 2020 Moratal, Lupiáñez, Ballester and Huertas. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Moratal, Consuelo
Lupiáñez, Juan
Ballester, Rafael
Huertas, Florentino
Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title_full Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title_fullStr Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title_full_unstemmed Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title_short Deliberate Soccer Practice Modulates Attentional Functioning in Children
title_sort deliberate soccer practice modulates attentional functioning in children
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235161/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32477207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00761
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