title: The discovery of slowness: Time to deconstruct Gretzky's and Messi's predictive brains.
abstract: Jafari and Smith hypothesized that time during games may pass slower for the world's best football player, Lionel Messi, from Argentina. This hypothesis leads to two questions: How can we explain such temporal paradox and how could this explain his dominant performances? Remarkably, the Argentinian's case was preceded by the equally astonishing case of Wayne Gretzky: The Canadian considered ice hockey as a rather slow game and was the best player in the sport's history. Whether Messi's and Gretzky's motor neurons fire faster, (inter)act differently or whether other mechanisms are at (inter)play warrants targeted research. A further explanation for such dominance of football and ice hockey, respectively, could be that both athletes "buy time": To this end, automized motor skills may allow their predictive brains to make better use of time than other players to read the games and plan ahead. Deconstructing predictive minds of outperforming individuals like Gretzky and Messi could provide unique options to elucidate how differential time perception may make performances in athletes, and beyond, more swift and more efficient.
authors.affiliation: a Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research , University of Cologne , Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Erren
authors.affiliation: a Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research , University of Cologne , Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Liz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kuffer
authors.affiliation: a Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research , University of Cologne , Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pinger
authors.affiliation: a Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research , University of Cologne , Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: J Valérie
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Groß
mesh_terms: D056352:Athletes; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D005538:Football; D006688:Hockey; D006801:Humans; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Lionel Messi; Wayne Gretzky; discovery of slowness; predictive brain; time perception