2019 Volume 46 Issue 1 Pages 19-30
Mental faculties are a key factor for achieving optimal performance in sports. The purpose of this study was to clarify the subitizing performance in ice hockey players of open-skill sports, and how this differs by their position by using N2 and P3, which are event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by subitizing based enumeration. The participants were 14 young Japanese males who agreed to participate in the study for course credit. They were divided to the athlete (n＝7) or control (n＝7) group. In Experiment 1, the subitizing task stimuli included 30 random patterns containing anywhere from 3 to 12 ice hockey player silhouettes ; in Experiment 2, the silhouettes were replaced by circle figures. Participants were instructed to press a button with their right hand and verbally provide the number of stimuli on the display screen when they knew that number with simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) recording. There was no apparent behavioral difference between athletes and controls. However, among the athletes, goalkeepers were observed to respond more accurately than did field players. The amplitude of the second negative component (N2) differed between the athlete and control groups over the frontal and central area and was greater in the former group. Our findings suggest that the athlete group exhibited faster subitizing than did the control group. P3 amplitude was larger when a smaller number of items were enumerated by subitizing than when 5 or more items were presented, reflecting the allocation of attention to the silhouettes/circle figures. These findings suggest that N2 amplitude may detect the difference between athlete and control, that P3 amplitude can identify whether the enumerating is performed by subitizing or counting, and that the enumerating accuracy might be useful as a measure of the quick enumerating skill of the ice hockey players who requires good subitizing skills.
