Hemispheric Directionality in Open and Closed-Skill Athletes During a Multiple Object Tracking Task

Diğer Uluslararası Fon Programları, 2026 - 2026

Proje Türü: Diğer Uluslararası Fon Programları
Başlama Tarihi: Haziran 2026
Bitiş Tarihi: Ağustos 2026

Proje Özeti

Visual attention, spatial object tracking, and cognitive control processes play a crucial role in athletic performance. Athletes’ capacity to adapt to environmental changes is directly related to these skills. The Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) paradigm, which involves the task of tracking several moving objects, provides a systematic and controlled means of examining attentional processes under laboratory conditions (Meyerhoff et al., 2017). In MOT tasks, the neural processes underlying tracked targets and attended regions have been studied using components of Event Related Potentials (ERP), particularly in the parieto-occipital areas. For instance, Sternshein et al. (2011) demonstrated that as object load increases, the difference between ERP responses to targets and unattended objects decreases, indicating the limitations of attentional resources. Moreover, age-related changes in the N1 component have been interpreted alongside declines in tracking performance, highlighting the importance of alterations in early perceptual processes (Mazza and Brignani, 2016). This body of literature suggests that MOT sheds light on attentional control processes at both behavioral and electrophysiological levels.

In the sports science literature, the concepts of “open-skill” and “closed-skill” sports are frequently used. Open-skill sports (e.g., basketball, soccer, tennis) take place in dynamic and unpredictable environments in which external variables are constantly changing, whereas closed-skill sports (e.g., swimming, running) are performed under more stable, consistent, and self-regulated environmental conditions (Wang et al., 2013). Theoretically, open-skill sports challenge athletes to continuously adapt, rapidly redirect attentional resources, and more effectively engage inhibitory control mechanisms. In this context, numerous studies have reported that athletes participating in open-skill sports exhibit advantages over closed-skill athletes in executive functions such as attention, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control (Li et al., 2024). The meta-analysis by Heilmann et al. (2022) found small to moderate effect sizes in executive functions between open-skill and closed-skill athletes.

Neuroimaging and functional connectivity studies conducted on athletes have shown that sport-related neuroplasticity manifests at the network level. For example, resting-state fMRI meta-analyses have reported that both open- and closed-skill athletes exhibit increased connectivity in specific regions compared to control groups (Yan et al., 2025). Moreover, they suggested that differences in symmetry and asymmetry, particularly in interhemispheric connections, may be associated with athletic expertise. However, these connectivity analyses have generally employed undirected functional connectivity methods, meaning that the directionality of information flow has often not been examined.

In the EEG studies, directed connectivity measures (e.g., Phase Slope Index, PSI) have the potential to fill this gap. PSI estimates the direction of information flow between two channels based on the slope of phase differences across frequencies and has the advantage of being less affected by volume conduction effects. Therefore, it is a suitable tool for tracking directed interactions between hemispheres. PSI were frequently used to assess causal interactions in joint or movement dynamics (Mandalapu et al., 2021; Zhu et al., 2025), mental resilience (Hasan et al., 2025); and mental stress (Katmah et al., 2021) in athletes. Nevertheless, the current literature on open- and closed-skill athletes investigating phase directionality and interhemispheric information flow during cognitive tasks—particularly in MOT, which requires sustained attention and target tracking—is quite limited. Most existing studies have been restricted to behavioral performance or general functional connectivity measures, and rarely employ EEG-based methodologies, such as the PSI, which can reveal directed interactions. In this context, the present study aims to compare interhemispheric information flow and phase directionality between open- and closed-skill athletes during an MOT task, providing a novel contribution to the sport and cognitive neuroscience literature. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of athlete-specific differences at both behavioral and electrophysiological levels.