抄録
Event-related potentials and reaction times were compared between athletes and non-athletes using a serial choice reaction task to obtain basic knowledge on cognitive information processing ability of athletes. Three sets of oddball tasks were conducted using visual stimuli that demanded complex assessments. The task was to raise the difficulty step by step from task 1 to 3. Results indicated that the P3 latency of the athlete group was shorter than that of the non-athlete group for all the tasks. Moreover, although the P3 amplitude of the athlete group had been amplifying from task 1 to 3, while the non-athlete group had been attenuated. There was also an interaction between the reaction times. Furthermore, there were no differences between the groups for the task 1, whereas there were differences for the task 2 and task 3, with the athlete group showing significantly shorter reaction times. The results of the reaction times and the P3 latency time obtained in this study indicated that the cognitive processing of stimuli was superior in the athlete group compared to the non-athlete group. Furthermore, athletes processed stimuli using fewer processing resources than non-athletes, which facilitates athletes to continue rapid information processing even in the case of tasks with increasing difficulty.
