The superior response speed of table tennis players is associated with proactive inhibitory control

Mengyan Zhu; Yanling Pi; Jian Zhang; Nan Gu

doi:10.7717/peerj.13493

The superior response speed of table tennis players is associated with proactive inhibitory control

PeerJ. 2022 May 20:10:e13493. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13493. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Mengyan Zhu^#¹, Yanling Pi^#², Jian Zhang¹, Nan Gu³

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
² Shanghai Punan Hospital of Pudong New District, Shanghai, China.
³ School of Physical Education and Coaching, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: To explore the mechanism behind the faster volitional reaction time (RT) of open skill sports athletes from the perspective of proactive inhibitory control, with the hypothesis that the superior response speed of athletes from open skill sports is related to their enhanced capacity for releasing inhibition.

Methods: Participants were divided into two groups, an experimental group of 27 table tennis players and a control group of 27 non-athletes. By manipulating cue-target onset asynchrony (CTOA) in a simple cue-target detection task, the timing of target presentation occurred in different phases of the disinhibition process. The time needed for disinhibition were compared between groups.

Results: For the experimental group, RT varied with CTOA at delays less than 200 ms; for CTOAs greater than 200 ms, RTs were not significantly different. For the control group, RT varied with CTOA for delays as long as 300 ms.

Conclusions: Table tennis players took less time (200 ms) than non-athletes (300 ms) to complete the disinhibition process, which might partly explain their rapid response speed measured in unpredictable contexts.

Significance: The study provided evidence for disinhibition speed as a new index to assess the capacity of proactive inhibitory control, and provided a new perspective to explore the superior RT of athletes from open skill sports. We also offered support for the fundamental cognitive benefits of table tennis training.

Keywords: Open skill sports; Proactive inhibitory control; Reaction time; Table tennis player.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Humans
Inhibition, Psychological
Proactive Inhibition
Reaction Time
Sports*
Tennis*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11932013 and 31971024); the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant No. 19ZR1453000); and the Outstanding Clinical Discipline Project of Shanghai Pudong (Grant No. PWYgy2018-04). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.