On occasion, the producers of the associated products have made claims that go beyond that warranted by the evidence. This type of training is sometimes called brain training, perceptual training, attention training, or mind training (Harris et al., 2018). In the alternative approach, it is proposed that general perceptual and cognitive processes can be trained out of context (e.g., using stimuli and tools from ophthalmology). This approach dates to Brunswick’s ( 1956) concept of representative design, which demands representative tasks in perceptual-cognitive skills training that replicate the real world as closely as possible in terms of a few key components (specifically, perception-action coupling, action fidelity, and perceptual information) to improve the transfer of learning (for a discussion, see Broadbent et al., 2015, p. That is, to be effective in improving performance during the actual sport, the training must contain the perceptual information (e.g., spacing between opponents, expansion of a ball) that is present in the actual game (Baker et al., 2003a, 2003b Broadbent et al., 2015 Williams et al., 2011). In the first, led mainly by sport scientists, it has been proposed that training should be highly context- and sports-specific. In this systematic review, we combine research from sports science and basic science to evaluate one of the most popular perceptual-cognitive training tools in sport, the “Neurotracker.” Perceptual-cognitive skill training: Specific or general?Ĭurrently, there are two distinct approaches to improve perceptual-cognitive skills. For the latter, improving perceptual-cognitive skills, (i.e., processing the most important information at the right time to make accurate decisions) likely separates novices from experts (Mann et al., 2007). Such training includes strength and endurance training, skill training, and perceptual and decision-making training. That is, improved performance on game day. The primary goal of most types of sports training is to have positive transfer of training to competition. We provide recommendations for future Neurotracker research to improve the evidence base and for making better use of sport and basic science findings. Only three studies investigated far transfer to ecologically valid tasks, two of which did not find any effect. For other skills as well, the effects are mixed. The literature has major limitations, for example a total absence of preregistered studies, which makes the evidence for improvements for working memory and sustained attention very weak. With a systematic literature search, we scrutinize the evidence for whether general cognitive skills can be tested and trained with Neurotracker and whether these trained skills transfer to other domains. This literature suggests that the abilities underlying object tracking are not those advertised by the Neurotracker manufacturers. We then consider the several hundred MOT publications in cognitive and vision science from the last 30 years that have investigated cognitive functions and object tracking processes. We first summarize the sport science debate regarding the value of general cognitive skill training, based on tools such as Neurotracker, versus sport-specific skill training. In this review, we examine Neurotracker from both a sport science and a basic science perspective. The tool, which is also used in rehabilitation and aging research to examine cognitive abilities, uses a 3D multiple object-tracking (MOT) task.
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In this systematic review, we evaluate the scientific evidence behind “Neurotracker,” one of the most popular perceptual-cognitive training tools in sports.