Introduction: This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the impact of stroboscopic vision training on athletes’ reaction and decision-making ability, and examined the moderating role of key factors. Methods: Literature searches were conducted in five databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, EBSCO and Scopus. Two researchers independently screened the articles and extracted the data. The risk of bias in the included studies was evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool. Statistical analysis was conducted using Stata 18.0 software. Meta-analysis employed a random-effects model to analyze reaction time and decision-making ability, respectively. Subgroup analysis studied the moderating effects of participants’ age, sport experience, sport type, stroboscopic frequency, duty cycle, total intervention duration, weeks of intervention, intervention frequency and per session intervention duration. A total of 9 articles were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, involving 323 athletes. Results: Studies have shown that stroboscopic vision training has a significant impact on the improvement of reaction time (SMD = −0.82, 95% CI: −1.42, −0.22, p = 0.007), but has no significant effect on decision-making ability (SMD = 0.51, 95% CI: −0.09, −1.11, p = 0.09). Subgroup analysis indicates that stroboscopic training for 1 to 6 weeks, with 1 to 2 sessions per week and 10 min of high-quality training each time, is an excellent training program for optimizing athletes’ reaction ability. Duty cycles of less than 10 Hz and less than 50% are more beneficial for improving athletes’ reaction ability (SMD = −1.38, p < 0.05; SMD = −1.38, p < 0.05). Strobe training has different effects on different sports types, and the performance of open skill athletes (SMD = −0.60, p < 0.05) was significantly better than that of closed skill athletes (SMD = −2.02, p > 0.05). The cognitive performance of adolescent athletes under the age of 18 improved to a certain extent after stroboscopic training (SMD = −0.32, p = 0.05). The study suggests that stroboscope training has little impact on decision-making ability. Only training experience (≥7.5 years: SMD = −3.9, p < 0.001) and short training time (≤10 min: SMD = −3.9, p < 0.001) have positive effects on decision-making ability. Discussion: Based on this, these findings provide certain evidence for researchers and coaches, which can assist them in conducting stroboscopic training. However, due to the limitation of a small research sample size, further studies on optimizing stroboscopic training schemes are needed in the future to maximize the cognitive performance of athletes. Systematic review registration: CRD42023418594, https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020 .

Introduction: The purpose of this study is to systematically compare and assess the differences in perceptual-cognitive skills between expert and non-expert sports officials, and further explore the potential differences caused by different types of sports officials, in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the perceptual-cognitive skills of sports officials.Methods: Relevant literature published before 31 December 2022 was searched in four English databases. Review Manager 5.4 and Stata 12.0 software were used for meta-analysis and bias test.Results: Expert sports officials are significantly more accurate in their decision-making than non-expert sports officials, and exhibit a large amount of effect size (SMD = 1.09; 95%CI: 0.52, 1.66; P < 0.05). Expert sports officials had significantly fewer number of fixations than non-expert sports officials and showed a moderate amount of effect size (SMD = 0.71; 95%CI: 1.25, 0.17; P < 0.05). Expert sports officials' duration of fixation (SMD = 0.23; 95%CI: 0.25, 0.71; P = 0.35) were not significantly different from non-expert sports officials.Discussion: It can be seen that there are differences in the Perceptual-cognitive skills of expert and non-expert sports officials. Decision-making accuracy can serve as an important indicator for distinguishing the perceptual-cognitive skills of expert and non-expert sports officials. Number of fixations can serve as important indicators to differentiate the perceptual-cognitive skills of monitors.Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=418594, identifier: CRD42023418594.

Background: In sports, basketball referees have to face high pressure and time constraints, efficient visual search behavior and decision-making particularly important.Methods: This study compared different levels of experience (expert group, n = 10; non-expert groups, n = 10) examined the visual search behavior and decision-making ability of basketball referees when watching 20 game video clips through eye movement technology.Results: The results showed that, compared with the non-expert group, the expert group had higher decision-making accuracy (p < 0.01), and the percentage of fixations time was longer in the central area (p < 0.01), the outer area (p < 0.01) and the percentage of fixations time in the invalid area (p < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the number of fixations (p = 0.904), fixations duration (p = 0.363) and entropy (p = 0.213) between the expert group and non-experts.Conclusion: Our research indicates that there are significant differences in the visual search behaviors of basketball referees with different experiences. These data can provide valuable insights into the visual search patterns of basketball referees in real game environments and emphasize the importance of refereeing expertise for basketball referees.

Introduction: Recent studies highlight the significance of visual cognition in sports officiating. This study investigates how official type and officiating expertise influence visual tracking performance using the Multiple Identity Tracking (MIT) and dot-detection tasks.Methods: 36 officials aged 20–38 years were recruited and classified into interactors (basketball referees), reactors (badminton judges), and monitors (gymnastics judges) according to official type, and into expert and non-expert groups according to officiating expertise.Results: Results revealed significant main effect of official type on tracking accuracy (P < 0.001), detection stimulus awareness rate (P < 0.05), and tracking time (P < 0.001). Officiating expertise had a significant effect on tracking accuracy (P < 0.05), and detection stimulus awareness rate (P < 0.001). Notably, their interaction effect was not significant. Pearson's analysis revealed a positive correlation between the detection stimulus awareness rate and tracking accuracy, but not between tracking time and tracking accuracy.Discussion: Research suggests that officiating activities are closely related to visual cognition. Reactors demonstrate the advantage of objective fact-based decision making and their officiating characteristics are capable of exhibiting excellent visual performance in the MIT and dot-detection tasks. Furthermore, expert officials with the advantage of systematic training and a high level of officiating expertise, possess excellent visual tracking ability and decision-making skills in specific sports tasks.