Beavan Adam, Spielmann Jan, Ehmann Paul, Mayer Jan
TSG ResearchLab gGmbH, Zuzenhausen, Germany.
Institute of Sports Science, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Percept Mot Skills. 2022 Aug;129(4):1036-1052. doi: 10.1177/00315125221096989. Epub 2022 May 6.
Executive functions (EFs) are higher-level cognitive functions that help keep an individual's goal-oriented thoughts and actions aligned. While many studies have shown the importance of EFs in sport, a limitation in this literature is that female participants have been underrepresented. In this mixed-longitudinal study, we examined the development of EFs in a cohort of high performing female athletes. We collected data over five seasons in a large sample of 175 female soccer players (aged 12-29 years old) from the U14 - senior age groups of a professional German soccer club. Players undertook a large battery of cognitive tasks aimed at measuring higher-level cognitive functioning: a sustained attention task, a stop-signal task, a Go-No-go test, an N-Back Test, and both a 180°- and 360°-multiple-object tracking task. We used linear and non-linear mixed effect regressions to examine the relationship between age and EFs. Second order polynomial curves explained many of these relationships between age and EFs compared to their linear relationships. Negatively accelerated curves reveal that these players' cognitive abilities mainly developed before players reached early adulthood, with a performance plateau evident at around 21 years of age. Age explained low to moderate proportions of the variance in EFs (<1-50%), while cognitive development across playing positions was not a strong contributor to this variance ( = 2.1, = 2.1%). We concluded that age has a negatively accelerated relationship with EFs in female soccer players that does not differ between playing positions. These data support the idea that athletes require only a reasonable level of EF ability to perform at the highest level of their sport. Our research raises new questions regarding the validity of current EF measurement methods for inferring information about in-game use of these cognitive abilities.
执行功能（EFs）是高级认知功能，有助于使个体的目标导向性思维和行动保持一致。虽然许多研究表明执行功能在体育运动中的重要性，但该领域文献的一个局限性在于女性参与者的代表性不足。在这项混合纵向研究中，我们考察了一批高水平女运动员执行功能的发展情况。我们从德国一家职业足球俱乐部的U14至成年组的175名女足球运动员（年龄在12 - 29岁之间）的大样本中，在五个赛季收集了数据。球员们进行了一系列旨在测量高级认知功能的认知任务：持续注意力任务、停止信号任务、Go - No - go测试、N - 回溯测试，以及180°和360°多目标追踪任务。我们使用线性和非线性混合效应回归来考察年龄与执行功能之间的关系。与线性关系相比，二阶多项式曲线解释了年龄与执行功能之间的许多此类关系。负加速曲线表明，这些球员的认知能力主要在成年早期之前发展，在21岁左右明显出现表现平台期。年龄解释了执行功能中低到中等比例的方差（<1 - 50%），而不同场上位置的认知发展对这种方差的贡献不大（F = 2.1，p = 2.1%）。我们得出结论，年龄与女足球运动员的执行功能呈负加速关系，且在不同场上位置之间没有差异。这些数据支持了这样一种观点，即运动员在其运动的最高水平表现中只需要合理水平的执行功能能力。我们的研究提出了关于当前执行功能测量方法在推断这些认知能力在比赛中使用信息方面有效性的新问题。
