Cognitive and neural basis of vigilance advantage in soccer players: Evidence from the drift-diffusion model and magnetic resonance imaging.

Soccer is a sport that requires athletes to be constantly aware of rapidly changing and unpredictable environments and to react adaptively. Previous studies have found that soccer players typically exhibit a vigilance advantage, but the underlying cognitive and neural basis for this is unclear. In t...

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Published in:Psychology of Sport & Exercise Vol. 77
Main Authors: Zhong, Xiao, Li, Jiyuan, Wang, Letong, Chen, Jie, Gong, Xinxin, Xu, Lin, Peng, Ziyi, Peng, Lei, Shao, Yongcong, Jiao, Fubin, Yue, Yunlong
Format: research Journal Article
Published: Elsevier B.V. Mar2025
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      jtl: Psychology of Sport & Exercise
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      dt: Mar2025
      vid: 77
      pid: 467
      pub: Elsevier B.V.
      place: New York, New York
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        10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102804
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        atl: Cognitive and neural basis of vigilance advantage in soccer players: Evidence from the drift-diffusion model and magnetic resonance imaging.
      aug:
        au:
          Zhong, Xiao
          Li, Jiyuan
          Wang, Letong
          Chen, Jie
          Gong, Xinxin
          Xu, Lin
          Peng, Ziyi
          Peng, Lei
          Shao, Yongcong
          Jiao, Fubin
          Yue, Yunlong
        affil: School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, 100084, Beijing, China
      sug:
        subj:
          Cognition
          Soccer
          Psychomotor Performance
          Magnetic Resonance Imaging
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Gymnastics
          Human
          Students, College
          Decision Making
          Comparative Studies
          Thalamus Physiology
          Dominance, Cerebral
          Reaction Time
          Athletic Performance
      ab: Soccer is a sport that requires athletes to be constantly aware of rapidly changing and unpredictable environments and to react adaptively. Previous studies have found that soccer players typically exhibit a vigilance advantage, but the underlying cognitive and neural basis for this is unclear. In this study, 27 soccer players, 17 age-matched artistic gymnasts, and 57 college students were recruited to participate in a psychomotor vigilance task. Compared to the college students, the soccer players demonstrated higher vigilance, whereas the artistic gymnasts did not. Drift-Diffusion Modeling revealed that soccer players' non-decision time was significantly lower than that of college students, while drift rate and boundary were not significantly different between the two groups. This suggests that the vigilance advantage of soccer players stems from their shorter information encoding and action generation time. Vigilance was not only correlated with Right Ventral lateral (rtVL), Left Intralaminar (ltIL), Left Mediodorsal medial magnocellular (ltMDm) and Right Mediodorsal medial mag-no-cellular (rtMDm) thalamic subregions, and also correlates with the functional connectivity be-tween the thalamic subregions of rtVL and Right Intralaminar (rtIL), and rtVL and Left Ventral anterior (ltVA). And, rtVL may be an important region of vigilance dominance in soccer players. This finding not only helps to deepen the understanding of the computational process of vigilance in players, but also provides a reference for subsequent more in-depth studies of neural computational mechanisms. • Soccer players showed higher levels of vigilance than college students, but artistic gymnasts did not show a significant advantage. • The vigilance advantage of soccer players may stem from their shorter information encoding and action generation times. • Vigilance is associated with structural and functional connectivity in specific subregions of the thalamus (e.g., right ventral-lateral thalamus, left medial lamina thalamus, etc.), with the right ventral-lateral thalamus potentially being the central node for the vigilance advantage.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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