Effect of dynamic balance on human mental rotation task in female badminton vs. volleyball players

Samiha Amara; Badria Al-Hadabi; Heba El-Ashkar; Nabil Gmada; Hamdi Habacha; Bessem Mkaouer

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1338265

Effect of dynamic balance on human mental rotation task in female badminton vs. volleyball players

Front Psychol. 2024 Jan 11:14:1338265. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1338265. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Samiha Amara^{1

2}, Badria Al-Hadabi¹, Heba El-Ashkar^{1

3}, Nabil Gmada^{1

4}, Hamdi Habacha^{2

5}, Bessem Mkaouer²

Affiliations

¹ Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.
² Department of Individual Sports, Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Ksar Said, Manouba University, Tunis, Tunisia.
³ Department of Water Sports Training, Faculty of Physical Education for Girls, Helwan University, Helwan, Egypt.
⁴ Department of Biological Sciences, Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Kef, University of Jendouba, El Kef, Tunisia.
⁵ Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université de Paris, CNRS, Paris, France.

Abstract

Background: The present study aims to compare the mental rotation performance between two non-contact sports (i.e., badminton and volleyball) in different upright conditions (i.e., with and without dynamic balance).

Methods: Thirty-five female sports and physical education students voluntarily participated in the experiment, including fourteen specialists in badminton and twenty-one specialists in volleyball. The experiment involved a mental body rotation task with or without balance exercises on a wobble board.

Results: Badminton players outperformed volleyball players in the mental rotation tasks regardless of balance. More interestingly, the results revealed an overall decrease in reaction times when participants performed balance exercises simultaneously with mental rotation.

Discussion: Our findings suggest that introducing dynamic balance on a wobble board has immediate beneficial effects on the mental rotation performance of female badminton and volleyball players. These findings are discussed in the context of sport specificities and cognitive processing framework.

Keywords: badminton; dynamic balance; mental rotation; response time; volleyball.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The research reported in this paper was supported by the Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University.