Department of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200438, China.
School of Sports Science, Nantong University, Nantong, 226019, China.
Neuroimage. 2019 Oct 15;200:482-489. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.06.035. Epub 2019 Jul 5.
Motor expertise acquired during long-term training in sports enables top athletes to predict the outcomes of domain-specific actions better than nonexperts do. However, whether expert players encode actions, in addition to the concrete sensorimotor level, also at a more abstract, conceptual level, remains unclear. The present study manipulated the congruence between body kinematics and the subsequent ball trajectory in videos of an expert player performing table tennis serves. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the brain activity was evaluated in expert and nonexpert table tennis players during their predictions on the fate of the ball trajectory in congruent versus incongruent videos. Compared with novices, expert players showed greater activation in the sensorimotor areas (right precentral and postcentral gyri) in the comparison between incongruent vs. congruent videos. They also showed greater activation in areas related to semantic processing: the posterior inferior parietal lobe (angular gyrus), middle temporal gyrus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings indicate that action anticipation in expert table tennis players engages both semantic and sensorimotor regions and suggests that skilled action observation in sports utilizes predictions both at motor-kinematic and conceptual levels.
长期运动训练获得的运动技能使顶级运动员比非专业人士更好地预测特定领域的动作结果。然而，专家运动员是否除了具体的感觉运动水平外，还在更抽象的概念水平上对动作进行编码，这一点仍不清楚。本研究通过操纵专家运动员进行乒乓球发球的视频中身体运动学和随后球轨迹之间的一致性，来操纵动作的一致性。使用功能磁共振成像，在专家和非专家乒乓球运动员对球轨迹在一致和不一致视频中的命运进行预测时，评估了他们的大脑活动。与新手相比，在比较不一致和一致的视频时，专家运动员在感觉运动区域（右中央前回和中央后回）表现出更大的激活。他们在与语义处理相关的区域（后下顶叶、中颞叶和腹内侧前额叶）也表现出更大的激活。这些发现表明，专家乒乓球运动员的动作预测既涉及语义区域又涉及感觉运动区域，这表明运动技能在体育中观察动作既利用运动运动学和概念水平的预测。
