AUTHOR=Wu Kuo-Cheng , Lee Yu-Lung , Chen Shiau-Cheng 

TITLE=The effects of age and gender and elite levels on perceptual–cognitive skills of adolescent badminton athletes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1415693

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1415693

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Introduction</title><p>This study aimed to examine perceptual-cognitive skills across age, gender and elite levels of badminton adolescent athletes.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>A total of 57 badminton athletes divided into junior high school athletes (age = 13.36 ± 1.14 years, females = 22, males = 11) and senior high school athletes (age = 16.25 ± 0.84 years, females = 11, males = 13) were evaluated using a cognitive component skills approach. Elite levels were classified as semi-elite (<italic>n</italic> = 29, score = 3.23) and competitive elite (<italic>n</italic> = 28, score = 5.84) levels. Each group completed a cognitive test, including an evaluation of their capacity for Corsi block-tapping (CCT) and spatial priming tasks (SPT).</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>No gender effects were found in the perceptual skills of the adolescent players, and the age effect was consistent across gender. For the elite levels, the perceptual-cognitive skills of SPT of reaction time was performed equally in the groups of semi-elite and competitive players, however, in the CCT Span of working-memory (WM), competitive-elite players outperformed semi-elite players.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>We found that perceptual-cognitive skills of WM play crucial roles in the open-skill sports of badminton. Thus, when developing advanced skills to higher elite levels in adolescent players, perceptual-cognitive skills should be considered.</p></sec>