Spatial And Temporal Embodiment Of Mental Rotation In Diving Athletes

Mental rotation,defined as the ability to mentally manipulate twoor three-dimensional objects,is considered an indispensable component of spatial cognition.In object-based transformations,an object is rotated and the observer's point of view remains fixed,while in egocentric transformations,an object stays fixed while the observer's point of view rotates in relation to the object or the environment.Regarding the process of information processing,the stages of mental rotation were subdivided into perceptual stage,rotation stage and decision stage.The studies have found that activity participation can promote the ability of mental rotation.Thus,it has vital significance that focusing on the effect of sport expertise on mental rotation.Rotation is one of the most important movements in sports.Researches have confirmed athletes' mental rotation ability is better than nonathletes.The theory of embodied cognition explains that athletes can link their nervous system to the sensory movements during tasks and show the effect of spatial embodiment.Therefore,the embodiment effect refers to the facilitation of the action experience of the body on mental rotation as well as spatial representations.However,the current study fails to specify the processing stages of this advantage and it also lacks a deep description of the neural characteristics of the athlete's mental rotation.On the other hand,mental rotation is often accompanied by time requirements in the context of sports.The theory of embodied cognition suggests that cognition is produced by the interaction of the body and the environment under real-time pressure,such that the mental rotation ability of the athlete may gain its advantage through temporal embodiment.Diving requires various rotations of body.It not only contains performances with multiple angles,laps and axes,but also features clear time-limited characteristics.Therefore,this study conducted an expert-novice paradigm and chose subjects with different experience of body rotation(ie,elite divers and non-athletes).The picture of twist in diving was used as the stimulus of the mental rotation tasks.The aim of this study was to reveal the overall expertise(experiment 1),the characteristics of stages(experiment 2)and brain activity(experiment 3)of the effect of rotation experience on mental rotation with different transformations.Moreover,time pressure was also conducted to investigate the temporal embodiment of mental rotation in athletes(experiments 4a,4b),and to explain the features of the processing stages(experiment 5)and the brain activity(experiment 6).The main results of the study are as follows.(1)The athletes showed faster reaction times than non-athletes in both tasks with object-based and egocentric transformations.(2)The differences in favour of motor experts in the perceptual stages were confirmed,but athletes outperformed nonathletes in the rotation stages only in the egocentric transformations.(3)The athletes had larger N2 peaks at 0° in object-based transformations and at 0°,60° and 120° in egocentric transformations,and the N2 peaks were positively correlated with the reaction times of 0°.Moreover,the athletes had a lager amplitude of RRN in both transformations and the amplitude of RRN is related to both the rotation speed and the time of diving training.(4)Under the condition of time pressure,the athlete maintained the advantage of the response times in egocentric task and showed a higher accuracy rate than the non-athlete at 150° and 180°.(5)The performance of perceptual stage and rotation stage under time pressure were better for the athletes.(6)Under the condition of time pressure,athletes showed larger N2 peak and the amplitude of the RRN in the task under time pressure and the latter is related to the time of diving training.The study draws the following conclusions.(1)The advantage of mental rotation for the athletes were independent of the transformations,though varies stages effects were got with different transformations.(2)The larger N2 peak for the athlete indicated superior ability of attention during the perceptual stage,and the greater amplitude of RRN for the athlete presented the athlete's cognitive resources was used extensively and efficiently.(3)Under the condition of time pressure,the athletes showed faster reaction times and higher accuracy rates.(4)Larger N2 peak and RRN amplitude for athletes indicated that they utilized attentional resources efficiently and also had a deeper neural processing of mental rotation.