Visuospatial attentional functioning in amateur boxers

Abstract

Open-skill sports, such as boxing, are performed in constantly changing environments. Athletes must be able to move in a variety of ways and adapt to rapidly changing situations. Boxing requires sustained attention (vigilance) because athletes must perform while in motion at near viewing distance from which most of the visual information is received [1]. The attention adopted during the execution of a skilled motor action can have a profound effect on performance outcomes. Experimental data showed that optimal level of attention increases the perceptual sensitivity for the discrimination of target stimuli [2], reduces information processing time [3], and improves decision‐making processes in sport‐specific targets [4,5]. It has been speculated that one of the key factor affected the effectiveness of attention processes in sport is an expertise gained from participating in systematic exercise demanding a high level of visual attention during fast motor responses to external stimuli. Studies of perceptual-cognitive expertise in sports, using sport-specific as well as laboratory methods, demonstrated that expert athletes, in comparison with nonathletes and novice, make more use of available information, encode, and retrieve relevant information more efficiently, visually detects and locate objects and patterns in the visual field faster and more accurately, use situational probability information better, make more rapid and appropriate decisions, and perform better on measures of processing speed and a category of varied attentional paradigms [6,7,8]. It is possible that the attentional skills adopted during the execution of an athlete’s motor action in boxing training can be transferred to other behaviors outside of sport. On the other side, it is known that boxing is associated with a risk of chronic neurological injury. Studies indicated that participation in this sport may cause clinical sequelae of chronic traumatic encephalopathy [9], neuropathologic injury [10] as well as cognitive impairment such as attention, concentration and memory [11]. However, in amateur boxing, the exposure to repeated head impact is less than that seen in professional boxing, especially because of the shorter duration of the bouts and the use of protective headgear [12]. For example, Breton et al. [13] investigated amateur boxers' attention and orienting mechanisms by using event-related brain potential recordings, before and after a fight. This study did not reveal any abnormalities of attention or detection processes. Khani et al. [14] analyzed several variables of attention (e.g. accuracy, impulsivity and behavioral disinhibition, inattention, speed of information process) in amateur boxers, novice amateur boxers and runners. The authors also did not