Mental fatigue impairs visuomotor response time in badminton players and controls
Introduction
Mental fatigue can impair multiple visuomotor related skills in sport-specific (Duncan, Fowler, George, Joyce, & Hankey, 2015; Le Mansec, Pageaux, Nordez, Dorel, & Jubeau, 2017; Smith et al., 2016; Veness, Patterson, Jeffries, & Waldron, 2017) and non-sport-specific settings (Behrens et al., 2017; Lew & Qu, 2014). In addition, Smith et al. (2016), Le Mansec et al. (2017) and Veness et al. (2017) observed that also within trained (ranging from moderately trained to elite) athletes mental fatigue has a negative effect on sport-specific visuomotor related skills. For example, Smith et al. (2016) used the Loughborough Soccer Passing and Shooting Test with experienced soccer players and found that their shot speed and accuracy decreased when mentally fatigued. Similarly, Le Mansec et al. (2017) found that ball speed decreased and number of faults increased in mentally fatigued table tennis players who play at regional-national level in France.
These findings are in accordance with the effect of mental fatigue on endurance performance in endurance trained athletes (Van Cutsem, Marcora, et al., 2017). Based on these results, one would conclude trained/elite athletes are not immune to mental fatigue-induced impairments in sport performance. However, given the cross-over nature of all these studies, we should be careful whilst drawing conclusions. Trained/elite athletes might still be more resistant to mental fatigue than untrained individuals. In literature it has already been suggested that genetic and/or environmental (i.e. training effects) factors could underlie an athlete’s greater resistance to mental fatigue-associated physical performance impairments (Martin et al., 2016). Evaluating whether athletic status moderates the resistance to mental fatigue is of importance. On the one hand, it allows to determine the factors that may contribute to successful sport performance, while on the other hand it provides further insights to the mechanisms underlying the detrimental effect of mental fatigue on sport performance.
In endurance sport, Martin et al. (2016) was the first to design a study to specifically assess whether a certain level of training had any influence on the effect of mental fatigue. Interestingly, they found that professional cyclists exhibited superior performance during a 30-min Stroop task compared to recreational cyclists, which is indicative of stronger inhibitory control. Moreover, professional cyclists displayed a greater resistance to the negative effects of mental fatigue on a 20-min cycling time trial compared to recreational cyclists (Martin et al., 2016). Following this first study, Clark et al. (2019) also attempted to determine whether athletic status influences the effect of mental fatigue on cycling performance. Clark et al. (2019) found that a 6-min cycling time trial performance in both untrained men and non-professional highly trained individuals with a history of competition in a variety of sports was unaffected by mental fatigue. Unfortunately, as in the study of Martin et al. (2016), a similar 30-min prolonged cognitive task was used to induce mental fatigue. The choice for a rather short mentally fatiguing task (i.e. in mental fatigue-literature tasks of 90 min or more are often used (Van Cutsem, Marcora, et al., 2017)) in the study of Clark et al. (2019) might explain why they were not able to observe changes in multiple markers of mental fatigue. Clark et al. (2019) did not find any decline in performance during the prolonged cognitive task, nor an increase in subjective mental fatigue post the cognitive task. In addition, a mental fatigue-associated drop in frontal cortex oxygenation (i.e. a drop in Δ[HbO2] (Ahn, Nguyen, Jang, Kim, & Jun 2016; Li et al., 2009)) was not observed. As such, Clark and colleagues themselves express their uncertainty whether they were successful in inducing mental fatigue in the first place (Clark et al., 2019). This is a limitation that is also put forward in the study of Martin et al. (2016), and that might be caused by the relatively short period of increased mental load. The duration of the mental load is thought to be an important factor to successfully induce mental fatigue (Van Cutsem, Marcora, et al., 2017). In their systematic review on mental fatigue and physical performance, Van Cutsem et al., 2017, Van Cutsem et al., 2017, Van Cutsem et al., 2017 already argued that at least 30 min of mental load is necessary to result in mental fatigue and that longer tasks appear to induce more severe mental fatigue. Moreover, a recent study by Fortes et al. (2019) also appears to support this statement. Fortes et al. (2019) observed that 30 min and 45 min, but not 15 min, of smartphone use impaired decision-making during a soccer game in soccer athletes.
Apart from the discussion whether both Martin et al. (2016) and Clark et al. (2019) did succeed in inducing mental fatigue, the role of training level in moderating the effect of mental fatigue on endurance performance suggested by Martin et al. (2016) does not seem to be confirmed by the study of Clark et al. (2019). This discrepant outcome could be due to the fact that Clark et al. (2019) used a 6-min preload (i.e. a constant work rate-part) followed by a 6-min high intensity time trial to assess endurance performance. This preload may have had a restorative effect on the mental fatigue state (Van Cutsem, De Pauw, Buyse, et al., 2017). A second potential reason why the study of Clark et al. (2019) could not confirm the results of Martin et al. (2016) is that the genetic and/or environmental factors that are put forward by Martin et al. (2016), are in fact not moderating factors of this mental fatigue-effect. Clearly more research is necessary on this topic.
Therefore, we sought to assess whether open skill-athletes (i.e. required to react in a dynamically changing, unpredictable and externally-paced environment) might, like cyclists, be more resistant to mental fatigue than untrained individuals (i.e. controls). In order to do so, the effect of a 90-min mentally fatiguing task on an open skill-visuomotor task (visuomotor task; i.e. a test where a lunge movement combined with an arm extension is required) was examined in both badminton players and controls. Several studies demonstrated that sport-specific visuomotor related skills are impaired in trained athletes when mentally fatigued (Le Mansec et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2016; Veness et al., 2017). However, it is still plausible that visuomotor performance in trained athletes is less affected by mental fatigue. Most of the genetic and/or environmental (e.g. the lifestyle of professional athletes) factors that are put forward by Martin et al. (2016) to increase the resistance to mental fatigue in endurance athletes also apply to other types of athletes (e.g. open skill). Subsequently, these factors could cause open skill athletes to be more mental fatigue-resistant as well. We hypothesized that mental fatigue would negatively affect performance on the visuomotor task in controls, while badminton players would demonstrate greater resistance and be less/not affected by mental fatigue (Martin et al., 2016). In addition it was expected that badminton players would outperform controls on the visuomotor task as well as on the Stroop task (Martin et al., 2016).
Section snippets
Participants and ethical approval
An a priori sample size calculation based on the results reported in the study of Martin et al. (2016) (reported effect size of the interaction between condition and group was ηp2 = 0.293) revealed – with α set at 0.05 and an actual power of 0.85 – that a total of 8 participants were needed in each group to observe a similar interaction effect. Twelve healthy controls and ten healthy badminton players volunteered to participate in this study, and eventually, eleven healthy controls (mean ± SD;
Manipulation checks
All participants except two (1 control and 1 badminton player) reached the required minimum performance level of 70% in one of the two first time intervals during the Stroop task and were included in the data-analysis.
Discussion
To our knowledge this is the first study that assessed the effect of mental fatigue on open skill-visuomotor performance in badminton players and controls. The most important findings were: (I) Badminton players demonstrated a superior visuomotor performance compared to controls; (II) Mental fatigue decreased open skill-visuomotor performance in controls as well as badminton players.
Conclusion
These findings provide evidence that badminton players have better visuomotor response time than controls. However, they do not seem to be more resistant to the negative effects of mental fatigue on open skill-visuomotor performance. Both badminton players and controls responded on average 7% slower on the complex stimuli in the visuomotor task compared to baseline in MF. Furthermore, this study suggests that cognitive tasks with a larger motor component, such as the visuomotor task, are more
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflicts of interest
No conflict of interest is declared by the authors.
Acknowledgements
The authors declare that the results of the study are presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation. We would like to thank the participants for their engagement in this study. We also thank the master thesis students Olivia Charels, Melissa Evenepoel, Aron Ringoot, Karen Roofthoofd, Benjamin Vermeulen, Bram Laes, Jannes Nicodème and Cedric Demaerschalck for their help with the data acquisition.
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