What boxing-related stimuli reveal about response behaviour

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Alm a Mat er St udiorum - Universit à di Bologna] On: 12 Novem ber 2014, At : 05: 41 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Sports Sciences Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions f or aut hors and subscript ion inf ormat ion: ht t p: / / www. t andf online. com/ loi/ rj sp20 What boxing-related stimuli reveal about response behaviour a b Giovanni Ot t oboni , Gabriele Russo & Alessia Tessari a a Depart ment of Psychology, Universit y of Bologna, Bologna, It aly b School of Pharmacy, Biot echnology and Mot or Sciences, Universit y of Bologna, Bologna, It aly Published online: 11 Nov 2014. To cite this article: Giovanni Ot t oboni, Gabriele Russo & Alessia Tessari (2014): What boxing-relat ed st imuli reveal about response behaviour, Journal of Sport s Sciences, DOI: 10. 1080/ 02640414. 2014. 977939 To link to this article: ht t p: / / dx. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 02640414. 2014. 977939 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Taylor & Francis m akes every effort t o ensure t he accuracy of all t he inform at ion ( t he “ Cont ent ” ) cont ained in t he publicat ions on our plat form . However, Taylor & Francis, our agent s, and our licensors m ake no represent at ions or warrant ies what soever as t o t he accuracy, com plet eness, or suit abilit y for any purpose of t he Cont ent . Any opinions and views expressed in t his publicat ion are t he opinions and views of t he aut hors, and are not t he views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of t he Cont ent should not be relied upon and should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources of inform at ion. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem ands, cost s, expenses, dam ages, and ot her liabilit ies what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h, in relat ion t o or arising out of t he use of t he Cont ent . This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly forbidden. Term s & Condit ions of access and use can be found at ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- and- condit ions Journal of Sports Sciences, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2014.977939 What boxing-related stimuli reveal about response behaviour GIOVANNI OTTOBONI1, GABRIELE RUSSO2 & ALESSIA TESSARI1 Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy and 2School of Pharmacy, Biotechnology and Motor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 1 (Accepted 14 October 2014) Abstract When two athletes meet inside the ropes of the boxing ring to fight, their cognitive systems have to respond as quickly as possible to a manifold of stimuli to assure victory. In the present work, we studied the pre-attentive mechanisms, which form the basis of an athlete’s ability in reacting to an opponent’s punches. Expert boxers, beginner boxers and people with no experience of boxing performed a Simon-like task where they judged the colour of the boxing gloves worn by athletes in attack postures by pressing two lateralised keys. Although participants were not instructed to pay attention to the direction of the punches, beginner boxers’ responses resembled a defence-related pattern, expert boxers’ resembled counterattacks, whereas non-athletes’ responses were not influenced by the unrelated task information. Results are discussed in the light of an expertise-related action simulation account. Keywords: boxing, expertise, action anticipation, pre-attentive coding Boxing is a combat sport that involves two athletes fighting for the victory. To fulfil such aim, each athlete must be able to adapt quickly to changing events: mentally anticipate their opponent’s actions and react to external stimulations while simultaneously attempting to hinder opponent’s tactics. All these goals must be pursued in very short lapse of time, as boxing, like other combat sports (e.g., Savate, Karate and Taekwondo), is an open-skill sport characterised by very fast movements. From the beginning of training, indeed, boxing coaches recommend that their athletes pay close attention to cues coming from their opponent’s body posture and movements, as these suggest how best to plan the most effective responses in advance (e.g., Kärrlander, 2010). The experimental evidence supporting such an advantage has recently increased (e.g., Abernethy, Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996; Simon & Chase, 1973; Williams & Davids, 1998; Williams & Ericsson, 2005). It was shown, for example, that athletes discriminate the visual stimuli occurring in the region of the space where they are used to attend to actions typical of their sport. For this reason, volleyball players best discriminate stimuli that occur in the two top hemifields rather than those in the two bottom ones. By contrast, football players better discriminated the stimuli occurring in the lower parts of their visual field (Nicoletti & Umiltà, 1994). More recently, the nature of sport-related advantages has been refined and centres on the amount of motor expertise the athletes gained (e.g., Gorman, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2011). Indeed, when matched for the level of visual experience, athletes were shown to be better than non-athletes (e.g., coaches and journalists) in predicting the outcome of sport-related actions (e.g., Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi, 2008). The reason for this capability resides in the fact that they were better at basing their decisions on minimal kinematic cues extracted from the bodies performing the actions (e.g., Tomasino, Maieron, Guatto, Fabbro, & Rumiati, 2013). Moreover, by applying transcranial magnetic simulation on the brain of athletes and non-athletes, the motor system appeared to respond differently: when the motor areas of athletes were stimulated, they responded more intensively than those of the controls (Aglioti et al., 2008). Such physiological effects were interpreted as a sort of motor resonance developed through the common motor experiences that observers and actors share. Thus far, in the domain of boxing, the ability of boxers to code and respond to sport-related actions has been less well documented. One study involved Correspondence: Giovanni Ottoboni and Alessia Tessari, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Via Berti Pichat 5, 40127, Bologna, Italy. E-mails: giovanni.ottoboni@gmail.com (G. Ottoboni); alessia.tessari@unibo.it (A. Tessari) © 2014 Taylor & Francis Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 2 G. Ottoboni et al. athletes of Savate – a French martial art in which both punches and kicks are used (Ripoll, Kerlirzin, Stein, & Reine, 1995). Boxers were presented with videos displaying Savate attacks and asked to move a joystick according to the response that they would have executed. Reaction times (RTs) and response accuracy were analysed as a function of boxers’ level of expertise – low or high – and the complexity of the visual actions. The two groups differed only in relation to the complexity of the actions. Specifically, only expert boxers were able to respond accurately to the stimuli, but this advantage disappeared in the analysis of the RTs. Eye movements were further analysed and revealed unexpected results. Looking at complex scenes, the parts of the opponent’s body that were more tracked by Savate boxers’ fovea differed according to the level of their expertise: Expert boxers tracked opponents’ heads; beginners tended to track the opponents’ arms. These results suggested that the levels of training influenced the way in which athletes observed the opponents’ bodies. In fact, head movements are very informative because of the kinematic chains that constrain body movements (Michalak, Mischnat, & Teismann, 2014; Thomas, 2004), and this is particularly true in the case of punches and kicks, which in order to be executed with maximum force, they greatly affect boxer’s centre of gravity, and therefore boxer’s head (e.g., Thullier & Moufti, 2004). This could be the reason why by looking at the head, expert boxers appeared to extract and anticipate opponents’ arms position very efficiently. Alternatively, it could also be the case that experienced boxers may have learnt to code the arm positions through their peripheral vision, i.e., the type of vision that is the most important for movement detection (Bartz, 1966; Doshi & Trivedi, 2012; Reichenbach, Franklin, Zatka-Haas, & Diedrichsen, 2014). Complementarily with this last hypothesis, it could be advanced that boxers may have developed the ability to disengage attention from the centre of their field of vision to the periphery, as it happens in other sports (Nougier, Ripoll, & Stein, 1989; Williams & Davids, 1998). However, despite these hypotheses, the study seems to highlight that the advice of boxing coaches tends to remain unaccomplished. Coaches usually advise their athletes to pay attention to the lower extremities of the opponents’ body as these are informative sources about opponents’ attacks; however, as the preceding results suggest, athletes tended to track the heads of the opponents more. As already reported, data collected on boxing are exiguous and, as in the example we have highlighted, these involved complex fighting sequences. Hence, the present study aimed at shedding new light on the mechanisms that form the basis of response selection. In particular, we focused on the study of the pre-attentive mechanisms that are involved in the processing of spatial information in boxing opponents’ attacks. This was achieved by adapting an experimental paradigm that appeared useful in the study of different styles of bodily information coding by athletes and non-athletes (Tessari, Ottoboni, & Nicoletti, 2013). The hypothesis guiding the present study built upon a study that showed when presented with harmful body stimuli people tend to respond to them by moving the body part that is spatially congruent (Tessari, Ottoboni, Mazzatenta, Merla, & Nicoletti, 2012). In other words, when a left (palm-viewed) hand of a potential aggressor approaches their face, normal individuals’ response tends to be faster and more accurate when moving their right hand than left. On the contrary, they move faster and better their left hands when a right-palm hand seems to approach their face. On the basis of these results, we investigated how potentially harmful boxing-related stimuli might be coded by athletes and non-athletes. By presenting our participants with images of punching boxers, who have just realised the punch, we investigated whether sport-related experience might play a role in modulating spontaneous responses. We expected to elicit similar patterns of response in all the participants if the mechanism of reaction described by Tessari et al. (2012) is hard-wired into people’s repertoire of responses (i.e., despite the experience they had with the target stimuli). On the other hand, if sport experience plays a role in modulating the ability to read bodily postures and to plan motor responses, we might expect different patterns of results according to an individual’s level of experience. Indeed, following an opponent’s attack, boxers usually counterattack, as the final goal of boxing is the knockout. However, beginners might exhibit similar behaviour to non-athletes as their boxing technique is still in development and display behaviour resembling natural defence as it emerges when normal people are tested with body stimuli conveying negative emotions (Tessari et al., 2012). Experiment Ethics statement The experiment was approved by the Psychology Department’s ethical committee of the University of Bologna, and participants gave written informed consent. Boxing-related responses Methods Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 Participants Thirty-six participants took part in the study. They were all male and right-handed. Fifteen participants had no experience of sportive boxing (controls); the other participants were amateur athletes – i.e., not professional athletes who fight according to the Italian Boxing Federation (Federazione Pugilistica Italiana (FPI)) rules. Thirteen of the participants were ranked as “experts” and eight as “beginners” according to the FPI scoring system. The FPI scoring system awards 4 points for a match victory, 1 point for a defeat and 2 points to each fighter for a draw. Once a beginner boxer collects 30 points, their rank increases to expert. At the time of the present study, the expert boxers we tested had competed in between 20 and 111 matches (mean = 55.71, s = 26.99), and the beginners had competed in between 1 and 14 matches (mean = 5.54, s = 3.90). The control group was aged between 21 and 33 (mean = 24.47, s = 4.34); the beginners between 17 and 31 (mean = 22.75, s = 4.56); and the experts between 18 and 32 (mean = 25.54, s = 4.82). There was no difference among the age of the three groups (F(2, 33) = .86, P = .43). Stimuli and apparatus The stimuli used in the present study were photographs showing a boxing athlete executing three attacks: a straight punch, an uppercut punch and a hook punch (see Figure 1). The boxer was photographed while wearing shorts and shoes. The photographs were then turned to greyscale, which allowed the gloves to be coloured red or blue. Each image was then flipped on its horizontal access in order to create two images to counterbalance potential bias generated by the orthodox stance adopted by the athlete we photographed. Each stimulus was 3 presented 5 times, giving a total of 120 stimuli: 5 sets of 3 attacks (straight, uppercut and hook), 2 punching hands (left and right), 2 stances (orthodox and southpaw) and 2 colours colouring the boxing gloves (red and blue). The stimuli were presented on a 15ʺ LCD computer screen display of a HP notebook 2.53 GHz, 4 GB of RAM, video card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470. Stimuli presentation and responses collection were controlled by E.Prime 2.0 software. Procedure Participants were seated in front of the computer screen and directed to code the colour of the gloves by pressing the “x” key of the keyboard with their left hand and the “.” key with their right hand. Half the participants were instructed to press the “x” for red and “.” for blue, and the other half received the opposite instruction. At the beginning of the experiment, participants provided information about their ages, the dominant hand and, only for the boxing athletes, the type of stance they adopted (orthodox or southpaw) and the number of matches in which they had competed. Each trial began with a fixation cross displayed on the centre of the screen for 1000 ms. Subsequently, the stimulus image was displayed and stayed on the screen until the participant responded. Following the response, feedback was provided, displaying the RT or the word “incorrect” for an incorrect answer. The feedback remained on the screen for 1500 ms. Analysis We performed two separate analyses on accuracy and RTs. The data were analysed using a Univariate Analysis of the Variance (UniANOVA) with Group (experts, beginners and controls) as between-participants factor, Punch (left or right as they are labelled according to the body-centred Figure 1. Some of the stimuli used in the task. In the three pictures on the left, the boxer is wearing red gloves, and in the three pictures on the right, he is wearing blue gloves. As the model we photographed adopted the orthodox stance, after we took the pictures of him punching, we flipped each picture horizontally in order to double the attacks and to counterbalance the effect that could rise from using a single stance. 4 G. Ottoboni et al. coordinates of the attacker) and participants’ Response to the glove colour (left response vs. right response) as within-participant factors. Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 Accuracy Neither Group (F(2, 33) = .99, ηp2 = .033, P = .38), Punch (F(1, 33) = .34, ηp2 = .001, P = .56) nor Response (F(1, 33) = 1.81, ηp2 = .003, P = .18) factors were significant. Also not significant were the two-way interactions (Ps > .05). However, the three-way interaction was significant (F(2, 33) = 5.37, ηp2 = 0.032, P < .01). Post hoc analyses were undertaken in order to study the three-way interaction. Different UniANOVAs accounting for Punch and Responses were calculated for each group. Analysing the performance of participants with no experience of boxing, no difference emerged either between the punch’s directions (Punch factor: F(1, 14) = 49, ηp2 = .008, P = .50) or between the responses (F(1, 14) = 4.2, ηp2 = .038, P = .06). Moreover, the two-way interaction was also not significant (F(1, 14) = 2.4, ηp2 = .029, P = .14). For what concerns the performance of the group of beginners, none of the single factors were significant (Punch, F(1, 7) = .26, ηp2 = .003 P = .63; Response, F(1, 7) = .20, ηp2 = .03, P = .66), but their interaction was (F(1, 7) = 28.00, ηp2 = .046, P = .001). When the performance of the group of expert was analysed, even here, no single factor appeared significant (Punch, F(1, 12) = .01, ηp2 = .001, P = .91; Response, F(1, 12) = .14, ηp2 = .012, P = .71) but their interaction was (F (1, 12) = 6.00, ηp2 = .034, P = .03). As Figure 2(A) shows, beginner and expert boxers responded differently: for beginner boxers, the responses given by pressing the response keys located on the same side as the punches (i.e., left responses – right punches, as they operate on the left-hand side of the observer, and right responses – left punches, as they operate on the right-hand side of the observer) were more accurate than the opposite pairings; for expert boxers, the responses provided by pressing the response keys located on the opposite side to the punches (i.e., left responses – left punches, as they operate on the right-hand side of the observer; right responses – left punches, as they operate on the left-hand side of the observer) were more accurate than the responses operated on the same side Figure 2. (A) (a) Accuracy results displayed as a function of punch and response combination in (a) participants with no boxing experience (controls), (b) beginners and (c) experts. Standard errors bars are displayed on the top of each column. (B) Pictorial explanation of the fact that the left punches operate on the right-hand side of the observer and that the right ones operate in the left-hand side of the observer. Boxing-related responses Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 as the punches (see Figure 2(B)). More specifically, using t-test with Bonferroni correction, the group of beginners resulted better using their right hand to respond to left punches than to right ones (t (7) = 3.42, P = .01), but no difference emerged in the left responses (t(7) = 1.16, P = .14). As regards the group of experts, they were only marginally better using their right hand to respond to right punches than to left ones (t(12) = 1.39, P = .09), but no difference emerged in their left response (t(12) = 1.25, P = .12). 5 Table I. RTs (in ms) displayed as a function of left–right response and left–right punches as recorded in the three groups we tested. Punches Responses Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right 412 407 379 370 412 407 419 408 380 358 419 408 Controls Beginners Expert Reaction time analysis Analysis on RTs considered the same factors described earlier: Group, Punch and Response. The analysis showed a difference according to the level of expertise of the three groups (F(2, 33) = 5.18, ηp2 = .222, P = .009, see Figure 3) as it emerged from the pair-wise t-tests with Bonferroni correction (controls vs. beginners t (90) = 3.99, P < .001; controls vs. experts t (110) = 3.43, P < .001; beginners vs. controls t (82) = 5.63, P < .001). Differently, the two punch directions appeared similar (left punch = 416; right punch = 415; F(1, 33) = .99, ηp2 = .001, P = .33), whereas responses with the right hand were faster than those with the left hand (411 vs. 419 ms, respectively; F(1, 33) = 5.09, ηp2 = .008, P = .031). No interaction, either two-way (Punch × Group, F(2, 33) = 1.32, ηp2 = .001, P > .1; Response × Group, F(2, 33) = .27, ηp2 = .001, P > .1; Punch × Response, F(1, 33) = .53, ηp2 = .01, .P > .1) or three-way (Punch × Response × Group, F(2, 33) = .18; ηp2 = .01, P > .1, see Table I) resulted as significant. Conclusion and discussion The present study aimed to contribute to the knowledge surrounding the sport of boxing. Thus far, the majority of the studies focusing on boxing Figure 3. RTs of three groups of participants. Standard errors bars are displayed on the top of each column. investigated the residual cognitive and functional capacities of athletes who are experienced with the sport (e.g., King, Brughelli, Hume, & Gissane, 2014; Mendez, 1995; Zazryn, 2006). Another small group of studies examined the correlation between the psychological aspects of boxers’ personality and fighting (e.g., Lane, Lane, & Kyprianou, 2004), ethical aspects (e.g., Lane, 2008; Woodward, 2011) and emotional aspects involved in the sport (e.g., Angelini, 2008; Jones, Lane, Bray, Uphill, & Catlin, 2005). However, less attention has been paid to the cognitive abilities demonstrated in boxing performance. For example Ripoll et al. (1995) analysed the attentional mechanisms underlying the information encoding and processes of decisionmaking in Savate boxers. The study focused on complex scenes because these emerged to be differently coded by expert fighters. Results showed that experts and beginners focused their visual attention on different parts of opponents’ bodies: the former tended to watch the opponent’s head, the latter their arms. However, a study focusing on the very basic aspects underpinning athletes’ performance is notable in its absence. The present research tried to go some way to filling this gap by presenting expert boxers, beginners and people without experience of sportive boxing with pictures of boxers in attacking stances. The study was conducted using an ad hoc modified version of a Simon task. While participants responded to the colour of the boxers’ gloves by pressing two lateralised keys, the side from which the attack came was expected to modulate the response. The modulation might occur according to a stimulus-response compatibility effect described by Tessari et al. (2012). When harmful body stimuli were staged (i.e., simulating an aggressive action towards the participant), the responses provided by moving the limb that was spatially congruent with the attack site were facilitated. In other words, participants were faster and more accurate to move their right hands than the left ones when a left hand from Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 6 G. Ottoboni et al. the palm was approaching them, as it appeared to be executed on the right side according to the observer’s point of view. On the contrary, participants moved faster and better their left hand when a right palm hand was presented. However, when the stimuli were deprived of their dangerous meaning (as it happened when the hands were presented from the back views), the responses were not as fast and accurate as before. On the basis of these results, if the stimulusresponse compatibility pattern, which is based on primal defence action, represents a constant mechanism of response – which should be consistent irrespective of the level of familiarity the participants had with the stimuli – constant patterns of responses should be displayed across all participants. If, however, experience does in fact play a role, different patterns of response should emerge dependent on the participant’s experience level. Specifically, expert boxers are expected to be faster and more accurate in responses operated contralaterally to the side of the attack, because once a punch has been thrown, the best side for the boxer’s counterattack is the off-guard side of the opponent’s body, i.e., the one on the opposite side to the punch. As regards beginners and non-athletes, given their limited (if any) expertise, they are both expected to give defensive responses (such as in Tessari et al., 2012), i.e., faster and more accurate responses provided by the hand that corresponds to the side of the opponents’ attack. Results, especially those provided with the dominant hand, confirmed the hypothesis about the difference in responses of expert and beginner boxers. Indeed, the former responded more accurately when the responses were provided with hands operating on the contralateral side to the attack (right punches that attack on left side – right response; left punches that attack on right side – left response); the latter group were more accurate when the responses were provided with the hands operating on the ipsilateral side to the attack (right punches that attack on left side – left response; left punches that attack on right side – right response), which is consistent with the non-athletes discussed in Tessari et al. (2012). Different from our initial hypothesis, it emerged that the responses given by non-athletes did not vary according to the sides of the attack, and they did not respond like the beginners. Accuracy analysis suggests different mechanisms of response, dependent on participants’ experience with the situations represented in the stimuli. In people with no experience of boxing, the pictures of a boxer throwing a punch did not induce any particular response: this may be due to the lack of saliency that the stimuli has for them. Whereas it has been demonstrated that for stimuli that are salient for everybody, as they convey bodily emotional primitives (i.e., male hands looking like approaching participants’ faces), a similar group of non-athletes reacted as if they were defending themselves (Tessari et al., 2012). In line with this saliency-related explanation, as the task-irrelevant features of the stimuli (the punching boxer) have become meaningful with experience with the sport, boxers could modulate their responses according to the level of expertise they had gained. Beginner boxers’ responses resembled defence behaviour similar to that shown by nonathletes when facing bodily emotional primitives; expert boxers demonstrated a more sophisticated response that showed the automatic activation of counterattack-like behaviours. Furthermore, we might suggest that our results are supported by the fight/fight automatic behaviour hypothesis, assuming that the perception of emotional stimuli and the activation of the action system facilitate the activation of the dominant hand (Borgomaneri, Gazzola & Avenanti, 2013, 2014; Tamietto et al., 2009). In particular, when presented with threatening, sport-related stimuli, higher activation is registered in the left motor area than in right (e.g., Borgomaneri et al., 2014). Such differences in brain activation may explain why the advantage in the defence/counterattack action was only observed in the dominant right-hand responses. Summarising, the responses to stimuli depicting (potentially) dangerous events seem to reflect the experience each group of participants has with the represented events. Indeed, when non-athletes are requested to code stimuli that are commensurably dangerous and meaningful to their experience (Tessari et al., 2012), they display defensive behaviour. In the case of this study, non-athletes did not show any modulatory defence effect as the stimuli were not salient (meaningful) to them. On the contrary, the athletes, who hold both physical and visual expertise of the stimuli (e.g., Makris & Urgesi, 2014; Tomeo, Cesari, Aglioti, & Urgesi, 2012), responded to them and different mechanisms were triggered based upon their level of expertise, as beginner and experts responded in opposite ways (i.e., defence or attack, respectively). As will be discussed, the differences recorded in the response accuracy revealed the importance of the level of motor expertise each group had. The analysis of the RTs returned a scenario in which the responses experts provided were the slowest, those ones provided by the beginners were the fastest and the non-athletes’ RTs were in between. According to the accumulator model of perceptual decision-making, accounting for the decision-making processes is the basis of motor response (e.g., Ratcliff & McKoon, 2008), and Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 Boxing-related responses motor responses are expressed when the amount of sensory information that has been stored exceeds internal thresholds. This means that only the visual information that has been adequately processed can be accessed in decision-making processes. However, although this model is explicative of much evidence (e.g., Onat, Açık, Schumann, & König, 2014; Scholte, Ghebreab, Waldorp, Smeulders, & Lamme, 2009), it cannot explain all cases in which (as it is evidenced by our beginner boxers) the correct decision is taken in a short time frame (e.g., Jolij, Scholte, Van Gaal, Hodgson, & Lamme, 2011; Thorpe, Fize, & Marlot, 1996). The explanation for our results needs to take into account the entire pattern of responses and the differing ways participants displayed of processing stimuli and selecting responses. Indeed, it is recognised that the more complex the movements, the longer they take to be executed, imagined and represented (e.g., Prinz, Beisert, & Herwig, 2013). Thus, as the accuracy results suggest, expert boxers simulated a counterattack response, and the beginner boxers a defence-related response, and recognising this, we can easily explain the differences in RTs between the two groups: in order to counterattack in the most advantageous way, for example, in response to a left fist moving on the right-hand side, the boxer should slip away congruently to the side of attack and then punch the opponent with the left fist. To do that, the boxer must locate his centre of gravity over the right leg and then slide in this direction. Comparing the complexity of these movements to those of defence, it is clear that the former takes longer as the latter is more instinctive, primal and does not involve any movements of counterattack. In line with this, the extra time experts took to respond in a counterattack-resembling way might reflect the mental simulations of a more complex and advantageous response gained through their experience. Two further interpretations can be put forward to interpret the extra time the experts took to respond. First, it might be the case that experts need more time to mentally process the stimuli as they scan for the side of the opponent’s body that is off guard when viewing another boxer’s punch. This case seems to resemble the model formerly described, but this time, the deeper analysis is supposed functional to the following mental plan of counterattacking. Second, it may be the case that the mental activation of the counterattack is time-consuming because experts must first suppress the automatic tendency to defend themselves against attack and then mentally plan the counterattack (Bossuyt, Moors, & de Houwer, 2014; Chen & Bargh, 1999; Karsdorp, Geenen, & Vlaeyen, 2014; Tessari et al., 2012). 7 At this level of investigation, these two interpretations cannot be disentangled from the previous (i.e., the simulation interpretation); thus, further research is needed to test the existence of additive and sequential effects of the two behavioural tendencies and to rule out possible bias caused by potential brain damage in the expert boxer group that could stretch their RTs (King et al., 2014; MacFlynn, Montgomery, Fenton, & Rutherford, 1984; Stuss et al., 1989). This study suggests that the processes of mental simulations might play an important role in the planning of response to critical events. Athletes have already been proven to better at coding sport-related events than non-athletes, as they have both more motor expertise (Aglioti et al., 2008; Tessari et al., 2013; Tomasino et al., 2013) and visual expertise (e.g., Makris & Urgesi, 2014; Tomeo et al., 2012). However, this is the first time within the domain of boxing that opposite behavioural responses have been shown within athletes practising the same sport at different levels. Acknowledgements The authors thank the boxing societies for the kind support they provided. In particular, we thank Bolonia boxe, Bologna; A.s.d. Boxe le Torri, Bologna; Polisportiva Circolo Dozza, Bologna; A.s.d. Boxe Nicchi, Arezzo; Soc. Sportiva Edera, Ravenna; A.s.d. Pugilistica Tranvieri, Bologna; A.s.d. Pugilistica Carrarese E. Bertola, Carrara; Pugilistica Massese, Massa. Funding The study was supported by RFO grant from the University of Bologna assigned to AT and which GO was involved in. References Abernethy, B., Gill, D. P., Parks, S. L., & Packer, S. T. (2001). Expertise and the perception of kinematic and situational probability information. Perception, 30, 233–252. doi:10.1068/p2872 Aglioti, S. M., Cesari, P., Romani, M., & Urgesi, C. (2008). Action anticipation and motor resonance in elite basketball players. Nature Neuroscience, 11(9), 1109–1116. doi:10.1038/ nn.2182 Angelini, J. R. (2008). How did the sport make you feel? Looking at the three dimensions of emotion through a gendered lens. Sex Roles, 58(1–2), 127–135. doi:10.1007/s11199-007-9229-x Bartz, E. A. (1966). Eye and head movements in peripheral vision: Nature of compensatory eye movements. Science, 152(3729), 1644–1645. doi:10.1126/science.152.3729.1644 Borgomaneri, S., Gazzola V., & Avenanti, A. (2013). Temporal dynamics of motor cortex excitability during perception of natural emotional scenes. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Advance online publication. doi:10.1093/scan/ nst139 Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 8 G. Ottoboni et al. Borgomaneri, S., Gazzola V., & Avenanti, A. (2014). Transcranial magnetic stimulation reveals two functionally distinct stages of motor cortex involvement during perception of emotional body language. Brain Structure and Function. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s00429-014-0825-6 Bossuyt, E., Moors, A., & de Houwer, J. (2014). On angry approach and fearful avoidance: The goal-dependent nature of emotional approach and avoidance tendencies. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 118–124. doi:10.1016/j. jesp.2013.09.009 Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(2), 215–224. doi:10.1177/0146167299025002007 Doshi, A., & Trivedi, M. M. (2012). Head and eye gaze dynamics during visual attention shifts in complex environments. Journal of Vision, 12(2), 1–16. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision. org/content/12/2/9 Ericsson, K. A., & Lehmann, A. C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence of maximal adaptation to task constraints. Annual Review of Psychology, 47(1), 273–305. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.47.1.273 Gorman, A. D., Abernethy, B., & Farrow, D. (2011). Investigating the anticipatory nature of pattern perception in sport. Memory & Cognition, 39, 894–901. doi:10.3758/s13421010-0067-7 Jolij, J., Scholte, H. S., van Gaal, S., Hodgson, T. L., & Lamme, V. A. F. (2011). Act quickly, decide later: Long-latency visual processing underlies perceptual decisions but not reflexive behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(12), 3734–3745. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00034 Jones, M. V., Lane, A. M., Bray, S. R., Uphill, M., & Catlin, J. (2005). Development and validation of the sport emotion questionnaire. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 27, 407–431. doi:10.13072/midss.117 Kärrlander, P. (2010). The complete boxing handbook: A step by step guide to boxing. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Karsdorp, P. A., Geenen, R., & Vlaeyen, J. W. S. (2014). Response inhibition predicts painful task duration and performance in healthy individuals performing a cold pressor task in a motivational context. European Journal of Pain, 18(1), 92–100. doi:10.1002/j.1532-2149.2013.00348.x King, D., Brughelli, M., Hume, P., & Gissane, C. (2014). Assessment, management and knowledge of sport-related concussion: Systematic review. Sports Medicine, 44(4), 449–471. doi:10.1007/s40279-013-0134-x Lane, A. M. (2008). I try to catch them right on the tip of his nose, because I try to punch the bone into the brain: Ethical issues working in professional boxing. http://wlv.openrepository.com/ wlv/handle/2436/48957 Lane, J., Lane, A. M., & Kyprianou, A. (2004). Self-efficacy, selfesteem and their impact on academic performance. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 32(3), 247– 256. doi:10.2224/sbp.2004.32.3.247 MacFlynn, G., Montgomery, E. A., Fenton, G. W., & Rutherford, W. (1984). Measurement of reaction time following minor head injury. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 47(12), 1326–133. doi:10.1136/jnnp.47.12.1326 Makris, S., & Urgesi, C. (2014). Neural underpinnings of superior action prediction abilities in soccer players. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsu052. doi:10.1093/scan/nsu052 Mendez, M. F. (1995). The neuropsychiatric aspects of boxing. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 25(3), 249– 262. doi:10.2190/CUMK-THT1-X98M-WB4C Michalak, J., Mischnat, J., & Teismann, T. (2014). Sitting posture makes a difference—Embodiment effects on depressive memory bias. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, n/a–n/a. doi:10.1002/cpp.1890. Nicoletti, R., & Umiltà, C. (1994). Attention shifts produce spatial stimulus codes. Psychological Research, 56, 144–155. doi:10.1007/BF00419701 Nougier, V., Ripoll, H., & Stein, J. F. (1989). Orienting of attention with highly skilled athletes. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 20(3), 205–223. Onat, S., Açık, A., Schumann, F., & König, P. (2014). The contributions of image content and behavioral relevancy to overt attention. PloS One, 9(4), e93254. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0093254 Prinz, W., Beisert, M., & Herwig, A. (2013). Action science: Foundations of an emerging discipline. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2008). The diffusion decision model: Theory and data for two-choice decision tasks. Neural Computation, 20, 873–922. doi:10.1162/neco.2008.12-06-420 Reichenbach, A., Franklin, D. W., Zatka-Haas, P., & Diedrichsen, J. (2014). A dedicated binding mechanism for the visual control of movement. Current Biology, 24, 1–6. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.02.030 Ripoll, H., Kerlirzin, Y., Stein, J. F., & Reine, B. (1995). Analysis of information processing, decision making, and visual strategies in complex problem solving sport situations. Human Movement Science, 14, 325–349. doi:10.1016/0167-9457(95) 00019-O Scholte, H. S., Ghebreab, S., Waldorp, L., Smeulders, A. W. M., & Lamme, V. A. F. (2009). Brain responses strongly correlate with Weibull image statistics when processing natural images. Journal of Vision, 9(4), 29. doi:10.1167/9.4.29 Simon, H. A., & Chase, W. G. (1973). Skill in chess. American Scientist, 6, 394–403. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-1968-0_18 Stuss, D. T., Stethem, L. L., Hugenholtz, H., Picton, T., Pivik, J., & Richard, M. T. (1989). Reaction time after head injury: Fatigue, divided and focused attention, and consistency of performance. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 52(6), 742–748. doi:10.1136/jnnp.52.6.742 Tamietto, M., Castelli, L., Vighetti, S., Perozzo, P., Geminiani, G., Weiskrantz, L., & de Gelder, B. (2009). Unseen facial and bodily expressions trigger fast emotional reactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(42), 17661–17666. doi:10.1073/pnas.0908994106 Tessari, A., Ottoboni, G., Mazzatenta, A., Merla, A., & Nicoletti, R. (2012). Please don’t! The automatic extrapolation of dangerous intentions. PLoS ONE, 7(11), e49011. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0049011 Tessari, A., Ottoboni, G., & Nicoletti, R. (2013). The effect of expertise on encoding of movements and bodily indexes: A study on volleyball players. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3522–3526). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. ISBN 978-0-9768318-9-1 Thomas, J. S. (2004). Kinematic and kinetic constraints on arm, trunk, and leg segments in target-reaching movements. Journal of Neurophysiology, 93(1), 352–364. doi:10.1152/jn.00582.2004 Thorpe, S., Fize, D., & Marlot, C. (1996). Speed of processing in the human visual system. Nature, 381, 520–522. doi:10.1038/ 381520a0 Thullier, F., & Moufti, H. (2004). Multi-joint coordination in ballet dancers. Neuroscience Letters, 369, 80–84. doi:10.1016/j. neulet.2004.08.011 Tomasino, B., Maieron, M., Guatto, E., Fabbro, F., & Rumiati, R. I. (2013). How are the motor system activity and functional connectivity between the cognitive and sensorimotor systems modulated by athletic expertise? Brain Research, 1540, 21–41. Boxing-related responses Downloaded by [Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna] at 05:41 12 November 2014 Tomeo, E., Cesari, P., Aglioti, S. M., & Urgesi, C. (2012). Fooling the kickers but not the goalkeepers: Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of fake action detection in soccer. Cerebral Cortex, bhs279. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs279 Williams, A. M., & Davids, K. (1998). Visual search strategy, selective attention, and expertise in soccer. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 69(2), 111–128. Williams, A. M., & Ericsson, K. A. (2005). Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport: Some consideration when applying the 9 expert performance approach. Human Movement Science, 24, 283–307. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2005.06.002 Woodward, K. (2011). The culture of boxing: Sensation and affect. Sport in History, 31(4), 487–503. doi:10.1080/17460263. 2011.650371 Zazryn, T. (2006). A prospective cohort study of injury in amateur and professional boxing. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40(8), 670–674. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2006. 025924