RESEARCH ARTICLE


Influence of Gymnastic Background on Triangle Completion Performance in Single and Dual-Task Conditions



Andrei Garcia Popov2, Nicole Paquet1, *, Yves Lajoie2
1 School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2 School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, 125, University Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5, Canada


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Creative Commons License
© 2013 Popov et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Tel: (613) 562-5800, Ext. 8022; Fax: (613) 562-5428; E-mail: npaquet@uottawa.ca


Abstract

Spatial orientation skills of gymnasts have been investigated in the past, but their navigation skills have not been well described. For instance, little is known on their performance on triangle completion in the absence of vision. The question is whether gymnasts require less attention than non-gymnasts in executing this task. The aims were to study the impact of dual-task on triangle completion performance and reaction time, and to compare this effect in young adults with or without a gymnastic background. Participants were blindfolded and guided along the first two legs of a 5x5 m right angle triangle and then, independently turned and walked towards the origin of this triangle. After they had stopped, their foot position was marked on the floor and angular deviation and linear distance traveled were measured. In the dualtask, reaction time was gathered during the independent walk with participants responding verbally ‘top’ as fast as possible after a sound signal. Gymnasts were found to have smaller angular deviation and longer linear distance traveled than non-gymnasts. Both groups showed longer reaction time in dual-task compared to baseline in sitting and this increase was similar for both groups. The results suggest that gymnastics training improves the perception and control of direction. However, it does not modify perception of linear displacement, nor the attention required to execute the triangle completion task. In dual-task, other cognitive tasks requiring working memory might have had a larger impact on both navigation errors and cognitive task performance.

Keywords: Dual-task, Gymnastic, Path integration, Reaction time.