Perceived usefulness of mirrored video self-modeling in the development of bilateral competence in elite team-sports

The use of video technology in perfecting athletic training has many benefits on performance. The aim of this study was to determine: (1) athletes' perception of the importance of bilateral skills in sports; (2) the prevalence of use of video feedback in individual skill development; and (3) athletes' attitude toward "mirrored" video self-modelling in four sports. A total of 20 elite athletes, from four popular team sports, were interviewed regarding the three issues using semi-structured interviews. The qualitative results indicate that bilateral skills are differently appreciated in the four team sports. They are perceived as the most important by soccer players, followed by basketball- and handball players and least important by the water polo players. These findings are in full synchrony with athletes’ attitudes toward using mirrored video self-modelling. It emerges that the use of technology for developing bilateral skills, with the aim to improve sport performance, is currently sport specific and matches the actual worldwide ranking of the sports' popularity

The effect of hand motion and object orientation on the automatic detection of orientation: A visual mismatch negativity study.

We investigated the effects of voluntary hand movements and continuously present objects on the automatic detection of deviant stimuli in a passive oddball paradigm. The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs) was measured as the index of automatic deviant detection. The stimuli were textures consisting of parallel, oblique bars with frequent (standard) and infrequent (deviant) orientation. Traditional vMMN was measured by the difference between ERPs to frequent (standard) and infrequent (deviant) textures. Additionally, we measured 'genuine' vMMN by comparing the ERPs to deviant and control textures in the equal probability procedure. Compatible and incompatible hand movement directions to the standard texture had no influence on 'traditional' vMMN and elicited no 'genuine' vMMN. However, the deviant texture elicited 'genuine' vMMN if the orientation of a continuously present rectangle was different from the standard (and identical to the deviant) texture orientation. Our results suggest that the direction of voluntary hand movement and the orientation of task-irrelevant visual patterns do not acquire common memory representation, but a continuously present object contributes to the detection of sequential regularity violation