Sensitivity to fine-grained and coarse visual information: The effect of blurring on anticipation skill

Copyright @ 2009 Edizione l PozziWe examined skilled tennis players’ ability to perceive fine and coarse information by assessing their ability to predict serve direction under three levels of visual blur. A temporal occlusion design was used in which skilled players viewed serves struck by two players that were occluded at one of four points relative to ball-racquet impact (-320ms, -160ms, 0ms, +160ms) and shown with one of three levels of blur (no blur, 20% blur, 40% blur). Using a within-task criterion to establish good and poor anticipators, the results revealed a significant interaction between anticipation skill and level of blur. Anticipation skill was significantly disrupted in the ‘20% blur’ condition; however, judgment accuracy of both groups then improved in the ‘40% blur’ condition while confidence in judgments declined. We conclude that there is evidence for processing of coarse configural information but that anticipation skill in this task was primarily driven by perception of fine-grained information.This research was supported by a University of Hong Kong Seed Funding for Basic Research grant awarded to the second author

Fitness & Sports Medicine

Objective: Existing literature has shown heart rate recovery one minute (HRR1) after exercise termination in cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) to correlate with performance, although no data exist on HRR3 and 5 in a population without manifest cardiovascular disease. We aimed to analyze whether HRR3 and 5 correlate with relative oxygen uptake at peak performance (V O2peak) and maximal power (Pmax) as well as with weekly physical activity (PA).Methods: We conducted a sub-analysis of the Euro(pean)Ex(ercise) trial enrolling subjects between 50 and 70 years of age without manifest cardiovascular disease (n=59). Subjects underwent CPET following an individualized ramp protocol with an exercise duration between 10 and 14 minutes. Results: V O2peak (35.69.0 ml/kg/min) and Pmax(245.380.4 W) correlated significantly with HRR1 (22.67.9/min, both p<.001; r=0.50 and 0.48), 3 (44.57.7/min, p=0.018 and 0.010; r=0.33 and 0.35) and 5 (64.814.0/min, p=0.002 and 0.001; r=0.77 and 0.72) in our study population (56.68.2 years). HRR5 correlated more strongly with PA than HRR1 and HRR3 (HRR5: p<0.001; r=0.51; HRR1: p=0.277; r=0.15; HRR3: p=0.156; r=0.20). Subjects with PA>5h/week (8.82.0) differed significantly from those with no regular sports in terms of HRR5 (p<0.010) and V O2peak (p<0.001). Conclusions: HRR5 is a better predictor for maximal exercise capacity than HRR1 or 3.Clinical Relevance: HRR5 should be included in exercise testing.KEY WORDS: Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing, Heart Rate Recovery, Aerobic Physical Activit

Labour supply in Austria: an assessment of recent developments and the effects of a tax reform

We apply a structural discrete choice framework to estimate income-specific own-wage and cross-wage labour supply elasticities in regard to working hours and participation for married and single males and females in Austria. We use data from the Austrian components of the European Statistics of Income and Living Conditions from 2004 to 2012. Own-wage elasticities are very small for males and slightly higher for females. Cross-wage elasticities are practically zero for males and slightly negative for females. Male and female own-wage elasticities decrease with higher incomes. Over time female labour supply elasticities decrease. Furthermore, we assess the labour supply and fiscal effects of the Austrian tax reform of 2016. We find a total increase in working hours by 0.71%. The labour supply effects are stronger on the intensive margin, for females and for low-income earners. On total the tax reform induces a tax relief of 4.7 billion Euros. The positive effects on tax burden and disposable income increase with the individual income. (author's abstract