title: Skill-related differences between athletes and nonathletes in speed discrimination.
abstract: This study examined differences in decision-making time and accurscy as attributes of speed discrimination between participants skilled and less skilled in ball games. A total of 130 men, ages 18 to 28 years (M=21.2, SD=2.6), participated. The athlete sample (skilled group) comprised Estonian National League volleyball (n=26) and basketball players (n=27). The nonathlete sample (less skilled group) included 77 soldiers of the Estonian Defence Force with no reported top level experience in ball games. Speed-discrimination stimuli were images of red square shapes presented moving along the sagittal axis at four different virtual velocities on a computer (PC) screen which represented the frontal plane. Analysis indicated that only decision-making time was significantly different between the elite athlete and nonathlete groups. This finding suggests a possible effect of ball-game skills for decision-making time in speed discrimination.
authors.affiliation: University of Jyvaskylii, Department of Sport Sciences, P.O. Box 35 (VIV), 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland. kaivo.thomson@sport.jyu.fi
authors.forename: Kaivo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Watt
authors.forename: Jarmo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liukkonen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001490:Basketball; D003142:Communication; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D013177:Sports; D054798:Volleyball; D055815:Young Adult