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Congruency monitoring of action occurs in individuals with relevant motor experience while observing actions. However, it remains unclear whether congruency monitoring can occur at the motor level and the extent to which expertise contributes. Here, we examined behavioral performance and electrophysiological brain activity of individuals with and without domain-specific expertise when judging the action congruency of occluded video clips of a snowboard halfpipe trick and normal walking. For the halfpipe trick, experts exhibited better task performance and greater midline theta oscillations before possible incongruency compared with controls. Source reconstruction for the theta oscillation revealed stronger activation in the middle and superior frontal gyrus for experts in response to incongruency compared with controls. Incongruent halfpipe actions elicited higher N400 amplitude in experts compared with congruent actions, while no such differences were observed in controls. Source reconstruction revealed the activation in the board frontal regions and middle temporal gyrus for experts. These findings suggest that congruency monitoring can occur at the motor level during action observations, and is modulated by individual expertise. The modulation of expertise reflects in the special N400 effect and midline theta oscillation.

Objective Time perception is a critical point for curling athletes to have in order to successfully complete interactions between themselves and their environment. Exploring the relationship between the accuracy of duration judgment and curling athletes’ performance is helpful to reveal the influencing factors on their performance and to provide a reference for the training of athletes’ delivery performance. Methods Thirty curling athletes and 30 non-athletes were recruited as participants. Using 3D modeling technology, curling videos of different situations were presented to the participants as stimulus information, and the participants were required to complete the duration judgment task. The neural activation of the participants during the entire process of duration judgment was recorded using electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment. The performance of the 30 curlers participating in the experiment was measured. Variance analyses were conducted on the collected behavioral and EEG data, and correlation and regression analyseswere conducted between behavioral data and delivery performance. Results The accuracy of the distance judgment of curlers was higher than that of non-curlers (P < 0.05). In the stimulus video presentation stage, the power in the alpha band of curlers was higher than that of non-athletes (P < 0.05). In the task decision stage, the power in the alpha band of curlers was higher than that of non-athletes (P < 0.05), and the power in the theta band was higher than that of non-athletes (P < 0.05). There was a correlation between the accuracy of the curlers’ perception of specific situational time intervals and the accuracy of delivery (P < 0.05). Regression analysis results were y = 3.422 + 1.415x. Conclusion The accuracy of curling athletes’ duration judgment is high in a specific situation. There is a correlation between the accuracy of duration judgment and delivery performance in a specific situation: the higher the accuracy of specific duration perception, the higher the performance accuracy of delivery. The cognitive strategies adopted by curlers differ from those adopted by non-athletes in the completion of duration judgment. Specifically, in a specific situation, fewer attention resources are utilized in the stimulus presentation and decision-making stages, while more memory resources are utilized in the decision-making stage to ensure higher accuracy of interval judgment. This study provides a new idea for exploring the causes of curling athletes’ excellent technical performance and provides a reference for future curling research on competition training practice. Given the limitations of mobile EEG devices in this study, future studies can measure neural activity during actual delivery preparation and execution in an environment of high ecological validity to obtain more direct evidence.

Prior studies have shown that athletes possess an excellent ability for action an-ticipation. However, it is not clear how athletes manage to regulate their behaviors when predicted outcomes deviate from actual outcomes. Based on Bayes theory and the predicted response outcome (PRO) model, the current study explored this ques-tion using novice and expert table tennis players. Discrepancies between predicted outcomes and actual outcomes were varied into seven conditions. We first examined the differences between experts and novices in a congruence discrimination task and confirmed that experts were better than novices at identifying discrepancies. Subse-quently, EEG technology was used to further explore the specific behavior and neural activity in experts during discrepancy processing. Reaction time and theta oscilla-tions gradually increased as the size of discrepancy between the predicted and the actual outcomes increased. These results suggest that experience promotes the mon-itoring of discrepancies between predicted and actual outcomes in athletes leading to flexibility in coping with varying degrees discrepancy.