Exploring the interaction of physical exercise load and pattern recall performance in female handball players

Abstract

Studies examining experts' superiority within domain-specific structured pattern recall tasks have typically had athletes perform them at rest, which is far different from how they are executed in their sport. The aim of this study was to investigate whether performing these tasks under different physical exercise intensities influenced pattern recall results of experts, advanced and novices. In two experiments, 68 participants (experiment 1: n = 33; experiment 2: n = 35) were tested using a handball-specific pattern recall task both at rest and during physical exercise. Physical exercises of 60 % heart rate reserve (constant workload: experiment 1) and of 86.5-90 % HRmax (handball-specific interval load: experiment 2) were induced. Results of both experiments revealed significant group differences with experts recalling patterns more accurately than novices but no significant within-subject differences for the two conditions and no interaction between both factors. Our findings replicate prior research concerning perceptual-cognitive expertise in structured specific pattern recall tasks. However, the lack of intergroup differences between the two conditions or interactions was surprising, suggesting sport-specific pattern recall skill is robust to changes in exercise stimuli. Future work is needed to further examine the impact of "physiological specificity" on perceptual-cognitive expertise.

Toward a better theoretical and practical understanding of field players’ decision-making in handball: A systematic review

“…First, revealed that short-term memory was a significant predictor of the decision-making ability. Globally, expert players performed better than novices in these tasks (Furley & Memmert, 2013;Schapschröer et al, 2016b;Tenenbaum, Kolker, Bar-Eli, & Weinberg, 1994), especially when the complexity increased (Furley & Memmert, 2013). However, experts performed better only when the proposed situations are structured (Schapschröer et al, 2016a;2016b;.…”

“…Finally, Furley & Memmert (2013) suggested that an "ethologic" approach could be used to study decision-making and analyze cognitive processes in a real decisional context. In this way, this approach would respond to suggestions made by authors in the cognitive approach (Furley & Memmert, 2013;Kiss & Balogh, 2019;Schapschröer et al, 2016b;.…”

“…Globally, expert players performed better than novices in these tasks (Furley & Memmert, 2013;Schapschröer et al, 2016b;Tenenbaum, Kolker, Bar-Eli, & Weinberg, 1994), especially when the complexity increased (Furley & Memmert, 2013). However, experts performed better only when the proposed situations are structured (Schapschröer et al, 2016a;2016b;. Furley & Memmert (2013) explained the superiority of experts by a greater ability to use their working memory and visual attention.…”

“…Second, the study of decision-making skills, according to the cognitive approach, does not take into account the context of the decision, since the objective is to simplify and better control the different variables examined. Several studies suggested that it was a limitating point because the tests used and the executed tasks were too far from the in-game decisions processes (Furley & Memmert, 2013;Kiss & Balogh, 2019;Lagner et al, 2014;Memmert, 2011;Memmert et al, 2008;Rousanoglou et al, 2015;Schapschröer et al, 2016aSchapschröer et al, , 2016b. Zwierko (2007) suggested that the results concerning the responsiveness to visual stimuli did not allow them to ascertain whether better performances were due to a genetic superiority or resulted from training.…”

“…Handball players have to quickly decide on the appropriate action, taking into account various parameters and with a certain degree of uncertainty. Over the past thirty years, several authors have studied decision-making in handball (Johnson & Raab, 2003;Schapschröer, Baker, & Schorer, 2016a, Schapschröer, Baker, & Schorer, 2016bTenenbaum, Yuval, Elbaz, Bar-Eli, & Weinberg, 1993). They focused primarily on perceptive aspects.…”