Traditional Neuropsychological Testing Does Not Predict Motor-Cognitive Test Performance

Jan Wilke, Oliver Vogel and Sandra Ungricht
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Jan Wilke: Department of Sports Medicine & Exercise Physiology, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60488 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Oliver Vogel: Department of Sports Medicine & Exercise Physiology, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60488 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Sandra Ungricht: Department of Sports Medicine & Exercise Physiology, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60488 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 20, 1-9

Abstract: The ecological validity of neuropsychological testing (NT) has been questioned in the sports environment. A frequent criticism is that NT, mostly consisting of pen and paper or digital assessments, lacks relevant bodily movement. This study aimed to identify the determinants of a newly developed testing battery integrating both cognitive and motor demands. Twenty active individuals (25 ± 3 years, 11 males) completed the new motor-cognitive testing battery (MC), traditional NT (Stroop test, Trail Making test, Digit Span test) and isolated assessments of motor function (MF; Y-balance test, 20m-sprint, counter-movement jump). Kendal’s tau and partial Spearman correlations were used to detect associations between MC and NT/MF. Except for two items (Reactive Agility A and counter-movement jump; Run-Decide and sprint time; r = 0.37, p < 0.05), MC was not related to MF. Similarly, MC and NT were mostly unrelated, even when controlling for the two significant motor covariates ( p > 0.05). The only MC item with (weak to moderate) associations to NT was the Memory Span test (Digit Span backwards and composite; r = 0.43–0.54, p < 0.05). In sum, motor-cognitive function appears to be largely independent from its two assumed components NT and MF and may represent a new parameter in performance diagnostics.

Keywords: neurocognition; reaction; vision; sports performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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