The Characteristic And Neural Mechanism Of Unconscious Perception In Table Tennis Athletes

Unconscious perception is inferred when a stimulus is demonstrated to be invisible because of its fast speed,while still influencing thoughts,feelings,actions,learning or memory.In sports,the continuous improvement of the movement speed of the subject(athletes)and the object(sports apparatus)puts forward higher requirements for the perceptual ability of athletes,including the unconscious perceptual ability of athletes.However,there are still some problems in the study of unconscious perception in sport.First,the unconscious executive control in sports has largely been ignored,and the results of the remained studies are controversial.Second,the neurological mechanism of the superiority of unconscious perception in table teenis athletes is still unclear.Finally,the mobility of the superiority of unconscious perception in table teenis athletes has been neglected.In view of this,we based on the theory of event coding,selected the pictures that related or unrelated to table tennis as stimuli,used the masked priming paradigm,recruited table tennis athletes and age-matched undergraduate students and used the electroencephalogram to record the cortical activity of participants,to answer the following three questions:(1)whether the difficulty of the task modulate the unconscious perception in table tennis athletes;(2)what is the neurological mechanism of the unconscious perception superiority in table tennis athletes;and(3)whether the unconscious perception superiority in table tennis athletes is migratory.On the one hand,it could provide the evidence to support the relationship between motor expertise and unconscious perception.On the other hand,it also provides the theoretical basis and practical guidance for talent training in the field of competitive sports and skills operation.In study 1,we determined the processing level of the unconscious perception superiority of table tennis athletes by controlling the difficulty of task.On the basis of study 1,study 2 further discussed the neurological mechanism of the unconscious perception superiority in table tennis athletes.On the basis of study 1 and 2,study 3 explained the mobility of the unconscious perception superiority in table tennis athletes.The following results were showed from six experiments.(1)When the presentation time of the prime was strictly controlled,both table tennis athletes and undergraduate students showed priming effect,but the difference is not significant,Experiment 2 further shortened the presentation time of the prime,under the unconscious condition,only table tennis athletes showed the priming effect.In experiment 3,the spatial dimension of the prime was increased on the basis of experiment 2,and none of the subjects showed the priming effect;(2)When participants process the experience-related stimuli unconsciously,the key brain regions in the dorsal stream and the ventral stream were activated,but the activation strength of table tennis athletes was greater than that of undergraduate students;(3)When participants process the general graphic shapes unconsciously,table tennis athletes showed the significant priming effect,while undergraduate students did not.Compared with experiment 4,the activation brain area in the dorsal stream and the ventral stream among table tennis athletes decreased,and the number of the activation brain areas in table tennis athletes was more than that of undergraduate students.(4)When participants process the general graphic directions unconsciously,both table tennis athletes and undergraduate students showed significant unconscious priming effect,but the difference is not significant.Based on the main results,we got the following conclusions:(1)Table tennis athletes do have the superiority of unconscious perception;(2)The task difficulty modulate the unconscious perception in table tennis players.(3)For table tennis athletes,the visual dorsal stream and ventral stream work together on the unconscious priming effect,but this mode of action will change due to the information we used,that is,compared with the unconscious processing of special sport information,the participation degree of visual dorsal stream and ventral stream in the unconscious processing of non-special movement information is reduced.(4)The superiority of unconscious perception shown by table tennis players in the special sports can be transferred to the field of non-special sports.