What Makes an Elite Shooter and Archer? The Critical Role of Interoceptive Attention

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Pengli Li¹  Quanyu Lu¹  Qiong Wu²  Xinghua Liu¹  Yanhong Wu¹ 

[1] School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University;Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, School of Psychology, Capital Normal University;Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University;Key Laboratory of Machine Perception, Ministry of Education, Peking University

关键词: shooting;    archery;    interoceptive attention;    breath detection task;    mindfulness training;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.666568

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

It is well-acknowledged that attention is important for expert performance in sports. However, the role of interoceptive attention, i.e., the attentional mechanism of awareness and conscious focus of bodily somatic and visceral signals, in self-paced and far-aiming sports remains to be explored. This study aims to investigate the relationship of expertise level and interoceptive attention ability in shooting and archery, and to examine if interoceptive attention can be improved by mindfulness training in elite athletes of shooting and archery. We tested the performance differences of 41 elite athletes from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery and 43 non-elite athletes from a provincial team in breath detection task (BDT) and dot flash detection task (DDT), which were designed to measure interoceptive and exteroceptive attention (i.e., attention toward information input of primary sensory), respectively. Furthermore, we applied mindfulness training to the 41 elite athletes for 5–8 weeks and remeasured their performances of BDT and DDT. Results showed that elite athletes outperformed non-elite athletes in BDT (but not in DDT) both in accuracy (Diff BDT = 11.50%, p = 0.004) and in discrimination sensitivity ( d ′, Diff BDT = 1.159, p = 0.002). Difference in accuracy and d ′ reached significant level only in BDT (accuracy: Diff BDT = −8.50%, p = 0.001; d ′: Diff BDT = −0.822, p = 0.003) before and after mindfulness training. These results indicate that elite athletes of shooting and archery (i.e., relative to non-elite athletes) can better perceive the somatic and visceral responses or changes and discriminate these signals from noises. Moreover, interoceptive attention can be improved by mindfulness training. These results have important implications for the selection and training of athletes of shooting and archery.

【 授权许可】

CC BY