Expert-novice differences in neural activation during a badminton anticipatory task

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to compare the neural activity of expert, intermediate and novice badminton players during anticipatory task performance. DESIGN: A between-groups, blocked fMRI design was employed; this design enabled inter-group comparisons. METHOD: All participants were volunteers. fMRI data were acquired continuously while five experts, five intermediate players and five novices viewed 2sec displays of an opposing player playing strokes. Participants responded via button box to indicate where each stroke was directed. Trials were occluded either 80ms before or 80 ms after racquet-shuttle contact. Video stimuli were presented in both full video (FV) and point-light (PL) format, the latter preserving kinematic information only. RESULTS: fMRI data were analysed using SPM2; resultant Regions of Interest (ROI) analysis data were analysed with SPSS v 15.0. Viewing and responding to stroke play superiorly activated experts’ mirror neuron system (MNS) relative to moving and stationary control stimuli in both viewing conditions. Activations overlapped strongly for pre- and post-contact occlusion conditions, but experts showed significantly greater activation in the pre-contact condition. ROI analysis revealed significantly greater activation across all conditions in expert brains for area MT/V5, and in MNS areas BA45 and BA47. There was also significant interaction between expertise and level of occlusion, such that experts showed proportionally greater activation in the pre-contact occlusion condition. CONCLUSIONS: These findings imply that for experts, pre-contact occlusion stimuli are strongly differentiated from control stimuli. This is consistent with MNS involvement in experts’ superior ability to analyse or model opponents’ movements.