Team sports place high demands on visuospatial and other cognitive skills. However, there is a lack of research on visuospatial skills of elite athletes and there are heterogeneous results on basic cognitive skills of this population. Therefore, this series of studies tested different cognitive skills in elite team sports athletes. In Experiment 1, elite athletes were compared to recreational athletes, but no differences were observed between the groups in choice response time (CRT) and mental rotation (MR). To see if differences could be observed when the tested groups had a greater difference in expertise and more representative stimuli, in Experiment 2 we tested CRT and MR of elite athletes who had higher level of expertise, and we also used three-dimensional human stimuli. Overall, we still found no differences in MR; however, elite athletes did have shorter CRTs. In Experiment 3, instead of testing MR, we compared elite athletes’ and recreational athletes’ basic cognitive skills, such as processing speed, letter readout speed, memory span, and sustained attention. We found that elite athletes only performed better in sustained attention. Building on this data, in a supplementary analysis (Experiment 4) we tested whether MR and CRTs are correlated with basic cognitive skills. Results show that processing speed is the best predibator for MR, whereas letter readout speed explains most of the variance in CRTs. Finally, we discuss these findings against the backdrop of expertise and offer implications for future studies on mental rotation.

Much recent research has shown an association between mood disorders and an altered emotion perception. However, these studies were conducted mainly with stimuli such as faces. This is the first study to examine possible differences in how people with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls perceive emotions expressed via body movements. 30 patients with MDD and 30 healthy controls observed video scenes of human interactions conveyed by point–light displays (PLDs). They rated the depicted emotions and judged their confidence in their rating. Results showed that patients with MDD rated the depicted interactions more negatively than healthy controls. They also rated interactions with negative emotionality as being more intense and were more confident in their ratings. It is concluded that patients with MDD exhibit an altered emotion perception compared to healthy controls when rating emotions expressed via body movements depicted in PLDs.

Elite athletes are high-performance outliers within their specific sports. Even though science seeks to understand the nature of expertise and elite performance, much knowledge remains compartmentalized within subdisciplines. Despite this multidimensionality being acknowledged, an interdisciplinary approach to understanding elite athletes is still rare. This paper synthesizes insights across scientific domains in order to describe the population and individual characteristics of elite athletes. We analyzed diagnostic data from approximately 300 German squad athletes across eight different sports (e.g., gymnastics, volleyball, ice hockey, 3 × 3 basketball etc., age_female = 18.95 ± 4.84 years, age_male = 19.32 ± 4.19 years) with expertise values ranging from 2 (low expertise) to 16 (high expertise). Data covered muscular strength, lower-body dynamics, muscle-power genetics, blood micronutrients, basic cognitive function, mental health, social support, and training conditions. Results of logistic regressions identified basic cognitive function (B = 0.89) and well-balanced blood micronutrients (B = 1.22) as critical factors distinguishing elite athletes. Additionally, multiple linear regressions suggested that lower-body dynamics (ß = 0.72) is related to increasing expertise values. We examined interactions between determinants of elite performance, and found that social support is positively associated with mental health and training conditions, whereas muscular strength correlates with lower-body dynamics. Focusing on top elite athletes in contrast to semi-elite athletes, we found higher within-group similarities in basic cognitive function and blood micronutrients. Findings indicate the need for a systemic, individualized, and comprehensive model using individual-based profiles.

Research on motor-related attentional foci suggests that switching from an internal to an external focus of attention has advantageous effects on motor performance whereas switching from an external to an internal focus has disadvantageous effects. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of switching the focus of attention. Two experimental groups were trained to apply one focus direction – internal or external – on a previously learned finger tapping sequence. Participants with an internal focus training were instructed to attend to their moving fingers; those with an external focus training were instructed to attend to the response buttons. In the first half of the experiment, participants performed with their trained focus, in the second half, they were unexpectedly asked to switch to the untrained attentional focus. Our data showed that the switch from a trained internal to an unfamiliar external focus of attention elicited increased activation of the left lateral premotor cortex (PMC). We propose that this activation can be linked to the role of the PMC in action planning – probably indicating a facilitation effect on selectional motor processes. Switching from a trained external to an unfamiliar internal focus of attention revealed enhanced activation of the left primary somatosensory cortex and intraparietal lobule. We interpret these modulations as a result of the amplifying influence of afferent information on motor processing when asked to attend internally in a motor task after being trained with an external focus.