Effect of Conceptual Experience on the Action Processing in Table Tennis Players: An ERP Study

  Objective  It is to investigate how conceptual experience was involved in action processing and its neural mechanisms in the competitive sport field.

  Methods  The cortical responses were recorded when participants in three groups were completing an action anticipation task, including expert table tennis players (Expert Group, EG), less-experienced table tennis players (Less-experienced Group, LG), and nonexperienced college students(Control Group, CG). The semantic-related N400 component was analyzed to explore the electrophysiological correlates of conceptual violation by presenting the incongruent ball trajectory compared with the congruent trajectory after the body-kinematics video-clip.

  Results  ① The response accuracy in either EG or LG was higher than that in CG(P=0.002);② The incongruent condition elicited higher N400-like amplitude than congruent condition both in EG(P=0.047)and LG(P < 0.001), but not in CG(P=0.846); ③ There was a significant correlation between response accuracy and the N400-like effect only in EG(r=0.62, P=0.001).

  Conclusion  The results verified the superior performance in special action processing for players after long-term training. Besides the action experience, the study further found the modulation of conceptual experience on action processing. In addition, as the skill level becomes higher, dependence on the conceptual experience will increase as well.