Lingnan University and Yiming Sports sign agreement to research athletes’ cognitive neural differences

Lingnan University (LU) and Hong Kong Yiming Sports (YM) held a collaboration agreement signing ceremony on 12 May to mark the beginning of a groundbreaking partnership and celebrate the launch of a joint study on “Elite Performance: Uncovering the Cognitive Neural Differences between Elite Young Athletes, Average Young Athletes, and Normal Young People through Resting State EEG and Task-Related ERP Measures”. The project will be conducted by LU’s Wofoo Joseph Lee Consulting and Counselling Psychology Research Centre to investigate the cognitive neural processes that contribute to elite athletic performance.

 

Officiated by Ms Wu Wei, Chairman of Hong Kong Yiming Sports and Prof Siu Oi-ling, Head of Department of Psychology and Director of the Wofoo Joseph Lee Consulting and Counselling Psychology Research Centre, the signing ceremony signifying the collaboration between YM and LU. Prof Siu said: “The project's primary goal is to contribute valuable knowledge to sports science and cognitive psychology, so as to benefit athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders in the sports community. We hope this project will allow LU to become a pioneer in the field of cognitive neuroscience and sports psychology, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. In addition, the cognitive processes that boost athletic performance may also apply to other types of learning and training beyond sports, such as educational or vocational training, potentially improving learning outcomes for a wide range of individuals.” The project will also provide LU’s undergraduates with valuable opportunities to participate in cutting-edge research, equipping them with essential skills for future academic and professional pursuits.

 

The study intends to recruit 60 young participants, 20 in each of three groups: elite athletes, average athletes, and normal young people. Elite athletes are defined as individuals who have ranked in the top 15 per cent in the Hong Kong Table Tennis Association or have represented Hong Kong in a sport at a national-level. Their EEG (electroencephalography) and ERP (event-related potential) will be recorded to study how the brain reacts to different training in real-time in order to understand how cognitive neural differences affect the response. The findings will contribute to better comprehension of cognitive and neural development in young athletes, potentially identifying targets for training interventions to optimise their performance.