Sport & Exercise Psychology Unit, Department of Sport Science, University of Rostock, Ulmenstraße 69, 18057, Rostock, Germany.
Health Equity Institute, San Francisco, CA, 94132, USA.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 17;8(1):10811. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29007-3.
It has long been postulated that cognitive and motor functions are functionally intertwined. While the idea received convincing support from neuroimaging studies providing evidence that motor and cognitive processes draw on common neural mechanisms and resources, findings from behavioral studies are rather inconsistent. The purpose of the present study was to identify and verify key factors that act on the link between cognitive and motor functions. Specifically we investigated whether it is possible to predict motor skills from cognitive functions. While our results support the idea that motor and cognitive functions are functionally intertwined and different motor skills entail distinct cognitive functions, our data also strongly suggest that the impact of cognitive control processes on motor skill proficiency depends on performance variability, i.e. on how challenging a motor task is. Based on these findings, we presume that motor skills activate specific cognitive control processes on two levels: basic processes that are solely related to the type of the motor task, and variability-driven processes that come into play when performance variability is high. For practitioners, these findings call for specific and challenging motor training interventions to directly tap into the to-be-improved cognitive skills and to involve a maximum of cognitive processes.
长期以来，人们一直假设认知和运动功能在功能上是交织在一起的。虽然神经影像学研究提供了证据，证明运动和认知过程利用共同的神经机制和资源，从而为这一观点提供了令人信服的支持，但行为研究的结果却相当不一致。本研究的目的是确定和验证作用于认知和运动功能之间联系的关键因素。具体来说，我们调查了是否可以从认知功能预测运动技能。虽然我们的结果支持运动和认知功能在功能上是交织在一起的，并且不同的运动技能需要不同的认知功能的观点，但我们的数据也强烈表明，认知控制过程对运动技能熟练程度的影响取决于性能变异性，即运动任务的难度。基于这些发现，我们假设运动技能在两个层面上激活特定的认知控制过程：与运动任务类型仅相关的基本过程，以及在性能变异性高时发挥作用的变异性驱动过程。对于从业者来说，这些发现要求进行具体和具有挑战性的运动训练干预，以直接利用有待提高的认知技能，并尽可能涉及更多的认知过程。
