TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2024//
TI  - Cognitive-behavioural processes during route previewing in bouldering
JO  - Psychology of sport and exercise
A1  - Medernach, Jerry Prosper
A1  - Sanchez, Xavier
A1  - Henz, Julian
A1  - Memmert, Daniel
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - INTRODUCTION: In the Olympic climbing discipline of bouldering, climbers can preview boulders before actually climbing them. Whilst such pre-climbing route previewing is considered as central to subsequent climbing performance, research on cognitive-behavioural processes during the preparatory phase in the modality of bouldering is lacking. The present study aimed at extending existing findings on neural efficiency processes associated with advanced skill level during motor activity preparation by examining cognitive-behavioural processes during the previewing of boulders. <br><br>METHODS: Intermediate (n = 20), advanced (n = 20), and elite (n = 20) climbers were asked to preview first, and then attempt two boulders of different difficulty levels (boulder 1: advanced difficulty; boulder 2: elite difficulty). During previewing, climbers' gaze behaviour was gathered using a portable eye-tracker. <br><br>RESULTS: Linear regression revealed for both boulders a significant relation between participants' skill levels and both preview duration and number of scans during previewing. Elite climbers more commonly used a superficial scan path than advanced and intermediate climbers. In the more difficult boulder, both elite and advanced climbers showed longer preview durations, performed more scans, and applied less often a superficial scan path than in the easier boulder. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Findings revealed that cognitive-behavioural processes during route previewing are associated with climbing expertise and boulder difficulty. Superior domain-specific cognitive proficiency seems to account for the expertise-processing-paradigm in boulder previewing, contributing to faster and more conscious acquisition of perceptual cues, more efficient visual search strategies, and better identification of representative patterns among experts.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1469-0292
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2024.102654
ID  - ref1
ER  -