Skill in Field Hockey: The Nature of the Cognitive Advantage

The present study assessed the relative importance of attributes determined largely by the efficiency of the central nervous system versus cognitive attributes in the determination of expertise in field hockey. Three groups were assessed on a battery of field hockey related perceptual and cognitive tasks: the Canadian Women's Field Hockey team, a university team, and a novice group. The attributes assessed were simple reaction time, dynamic visual acuity, coincident anticipation, ball detection speed and accuracy, complex decision speed and accuracy, shot prediction accuracy both when ball impact was viewed and when it was occluded, and recall accuracy of game-structured and nonstructured information. The multitask approach revealed the importance of cognitive abilities in the determination of skill in field hockey.