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The goal of this study was to investigate the visual spotting hypothesis in 10 experts and 10 apprentices as they perform back aerial somersaults from a standing position with no preparatory jumps (short flight duration condition) and after some preparatory jumps with a flight time of 1s (long flight duration condition). Differences in gaze behavior and kinematics were expected between experts and apprentices and between experimental conditions. Gaze behavior was measured using a portable and wireless eye-tracking system in combination with a movement-analysis system. Experts exhibited a smaller landing deviation from the middle of the trampoline bed than apprentices. Experts showed higher fixation ratios during the take-off and flight phase. Experts exhibited no blinks in any of the somersaults in both conditions, whereas apprentices showed significant blink ratios in both experimental conditions. The findings suggest that gymnasts can use visual spotting during the back aerial somersault, even when the time of flight is delimited. We conclude that knowledge about gaze--movement relationships may help coaches develop specific training programs in the learning process of the back aerial somersault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of two different routine integration strategies on volleyball float-serve performance, and on the structure of players' mental representations. Thirty female players participated in our study. One group trained routines using imagery, another group trained using the method of routines introduction, and the third group acted as control group. Players' imagery ability, hand and ball velocity, serve accuracy, and players' movement mental representation were assessed. The imagery group served significantly more accurate with significantly increased ball velocity, and players' movement mental representation covered more clearly these of the experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the overhand volleyball service routines of the German Youth Female National Team. Mental representations of this movement were reconstructed using the Structure Dimensional Analysis-Motoric method. The Routine Questionnaire was administered to collect self-report data. Results indicated that the mental representations of routines are organized in a hierarchical, tree-like structure. The movement mental representations of players not selected to the national team were organized in a less hierarchical manner. The coach's performance ranking was significantly correlated to the athlete's mental representation invariance values (structure quality), indicating a close relationship between mental representation and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to evaluate current attention tests in sport psychology for their practical use in applied sport psychology. Current findings from the literature suggest that measures of visual focused attention may show different performances depending on sport type and test conditions (33). We predicted differences between static- and dynamic-sport athletes (17) when visual focused attention is tested with random (unstructured) versus fixed (structured) visual search in two experimental conditions (quiet environment versus auditory distraction). We analyzed 130 nationally competing athletes from different sports using two measures of visual focused attention: the structured d2 test and the unstructured concentration grid task. Compared to static-sport athletes, dynamic-sport athletes had better visual search scores in the concentration grid task in the condition with auditory distraction. These findings suggest that the results of attention tests should be differentially interpreted if different sport types and different test conditions are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]