Cognitive-motor inference in table tennis

Purpose: In several sports, such as table tennis, athletes face high cognitive and physical demands concurrently, and this situation can impair performance via a phenomenon called cognitive-motor inter- ference (Le Mansec et al., 2012). This study investigated how table tennis athletes can manage single- and dual-task situations. Methods: Thirteen expert table tennis athletes with national and international experience were recruited (Mage = 20.4; SD = 5.3 y.o.). Participants performed three single-tasks and two dual-tasks. The single tasks consisted in performing the Auditory Free-recall Memory Task (MT) and two table tennis tasks: Easy Task (ET) or Difficult Task (DT; Le Mansec et al., 2012). In ET and DT, participants had to return a series of throws from a robot machine. In the MT, participants just had to store 20 words and recall them at the end of the tasks. In the dual tasks, participants simultaneously performed either ET or DT with the MT (MT ? ET and MT ? DT). The NASA-TLX ques- tionnaire was filled up after each single or dual task to assess perceived physical (PD) and mental demands (MD). Results: Significant differences were found among the different sessions (MT; MT ? ET; MT ? DT; p \ 0.001). MT performance was superior when compared with MT ? ET and MT ? DT. No significant differences between MT ? ET and MT ? DT were found. Considering only the first five words of MT, significant differences were found for the following task: MT vs MT ? ET; MT vs MT ? DT. Conversely, nonsignificant differences between MT ? ET and MT ? DT were found. However, when considering the last 5 words, MT performance was better when compared with MT ? ET and MT ? DT. Moreover, MT ? DT performance was better than MT ? ET performance. Mental demand was significantly different among the sessions (p \ 0.001). MT’s physical demand was signifi- cantly higher than all the sessions except the MT ? DT. Physical demand was also different across the sessions (p\0.001). MT’s physical demand was lower compared with all the other sessions. Moreover, the difference between MT ? ET and ET was nonsignif- icant. Whereas, DT’s and MT ? DT’s physical demands were higher compared with all the sessions. However, mental demand in DT and MT ? DT was not different. Conclusions: Results indicate significant cognitive-motor interfer- ence even in expert table tennis players: the more difficult the table tennis task becomes, the fewer words are remembered. These data are also supported by the higher PD and MD in MT ? DT compared to all the other sessions. References: Le Mansec et al. (2018). J. Sports Sci.