Does dynamic balance affect cube mental rotation task in badminton vs. volleyball female players?

BACKGROUND

Changing from a static to a dynamic balance condition could affect the performance of a cognitive task such as mental rotation. Thus, the main goal of this study is to investigate aspects of visual-spatial cognition between two non-contact sports (i.e., badminton and volleyball) in different upright conditions (i.e., standing position, frontal balance, and sagittal balance).

METHODS

Thirty-five volunteer female sports and physical education students, fourteen specialists in badminton and twenty-one specialists in volleyball agreed to participate in this study. Each of the assessments was a 3D cube mental rotation task with and/or without balance exercises (i.e., frontal and/or sagittal balance) on a wobble board. Five stimuli were used in the mental rotation task (i.e., 45°, 135°, 180°, 225° and 315° for objected-based cube condition with egocentric transformation) which included pairs of standard and comparison images.

RESULTS

The findings indicate that there was a notable decrease (p < 0.001; d = 1.745) in response time in both dynamic balance conditions (i.e., frontal and sagittal balance) compared to standing position condition. In addition, results revealed significant interaction between balance conditions (i.e., frontal and/or sagittal balance) and groups (i.e., badminton and volleyball) in the response time at 225° angle and in the error percentage.

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, dynamic balance is also an activity that involves mental manipulation of objects in 3D space, which can enhance badminton and volleyball female players' ability to rotate 3D cube stimuli.

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

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.

No effects of different perturbations on the performance in a mental body-rotation task (MBRT) with egocentric perspective transformations and object-based transformations

The present study investigates participants' performance in two different mental body-rotation tasks (MBRTs) under conditions in which dynamic stability is challenged in two different balancing conditions: active balance control (Experiment 1), where participants actively maneuver, and re-active balance control (Experiment 2), where participants react to an external perturbation. The two MBRTs induced either an object-based spatial transformation (based on a same-different judgment) or an egocentric transformation (based on a left-right judgment). In Experiment 1, 48 participants were tested while standing on an even ground (low balancing requirements) or on a balance board (high balancing requirements). In Experiment 2, 32 participants performed while either standing still on a vibration plate or with the vibration plate moving in a low (20 Hz) or high (180 Hz) frequency. In both experiments, the results for response time and response error revealed effects of rotation angle and type of task. An effect of balancing condition was only observed for response error in Experiment 1. More precisely, response times and response errors increased for higher rotation angles. Also, performance was better for egocentric than for object-based spatial transformations. However, the different challenges to dynamic stability in Experiments 1 and 2 did not influence performance in the two MBRTs (except for response errors in Experiment 1) nor in a control condition (Experiment 1) without mental rotation.

Embodied Mental Rotation - Does It Affect Postural Stability?

The effect of different human body part stimuli in mental rotation tasks (MRTs) on postural stability was investigated in two dual-task experiments. There were significant differences within egocentric MRTs (Experiment 1, N = 46): Hand and foot stimuli tended to cause more body sway than whole-body figures and showed increased body sway for higher rotation angles in the MRTs. In object-based MRTs (Experiment 2, N = 109) different stimuli did not evoke different levels of body sway, but higher rotation angles led to higher body sway. Both experiments showed a stabilizing effect of MRTs compared to the control condition. Exploratorily analyses identified reaction time in MRTs as a significant predictor of body sway. The results suggest a heterogeneous impact of mental rotation on postural stability.

The Relation of Mental Rotation and Postural Stability

Main goal of this study was to investigate the influence of mental rotation tasks on postural stability. 84 participants were tested with two object-based mental rotation tasks (cube vs. human figures), an egocentric mental rotation task with one human figure, a math- (cognitive control) and a neutral task, while standing on a force plate in a both-legged narrow stance. Parameters related to the Center of Pressure course over time were used to quantify postural stability. The simultaneous solution of mental rotation tasks has led to postural stabilisation compared to the neutral condition. Egocentric tasks provoked more postural stability than object-based tasks with cube figures. Furthermore, a more stable stance was observed for embodied stimuli than for cube figures. An explorative approach showed the tendency that higher rotation angles of the object-based mental rotation task stimuli lead to more postural sway. These results contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between mental rotation and motor skills and emphasize the role of type of task and embodiment in dual task research.

Easy assessment tool for motor imagery ability in elementary scool students

[Purpose] The final purpose of the present study was to propose easy and quick mental rotation task. Since subjects can easily understand mental rotation task that they have to do, the task is considered to be available in particular children. However, existing mental rotation task using specific software asked subjects more than ten trials per one pictured stimulus, meaning that relatively long time is required to accurately measure. Thus, children have difficulty to keep their attention during the existing task and to demonstrate their ability accurately. To address the purpose of the present study, the performance of mental rotation task using paper was investigated whether the performance has similar characteristics to an existing mental rotation task using specific software, in order to verify the usability of the task using paper. [Subjects and Methods] Sixty-three elementary school participants were asked to determine whether a rotating hand picture was left or right as quickly as possible and indicate it by writing a diagonal line on the paper. The total time required judgment of 16 pictures and the number of judgment errors were counted. [Results] The number of judgment errors increased with an increasing stimulus rotation angle. Also, the mental rotation time improved with age. [Conclusion] These results suggest that the performance of mental rotation using paper has the same characteristics as the existing method using specific software. Therefore, the mental rotation using paper would be practical method for subjects having difficulty to keep attention relatively long time, such as elementary school children.