Every sport requires a unique set of skills that become more advanced as the sport reaches different levels. A majority of the American youth population participates in some sort of sport, whether it is organized sports or just playing at recess. This is the time when the basics of sports are taught. Once kids get into their teenage years, sports start to become a major part of their life. This is the time to mature and acquire skills in sports. High school years are when the athletes start to separate themselves from the pack. The next level is college, then amateurs, then professionals. Each step of the way your brain is learning to use the skills that you’ve acquired over the years faster.
Professional athletes, amateur athletes, and non-athletes were part of a study in which each group was put through visual tasks. One task was to track virtual balls to represent players moving in a three-dimensional space on a computer screen. This task simulates being able to track multiple things at once. It comes as no surprise that the professional athletes excelled at this task compared to the other two groups. After a little bit of practice, the amateur athletes started to break away from the non-athletes.
The athletes showed that they are far superior than the non-athletes at tracking the movement of people. Among other things, athletes excelled with creativity and working memory. For someone to compete at the highest level of any sport, that athlete has been through rigorous training that non-athletes are not experienced with.
I believe that this does not necessarily make athletes smarter than non-athletes, it just shows that athletes can think faster because sports move so quickly. The athletes are used to thinking fast and being creative and that gives them an advantage with this study.
http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/can-playing-sports-make-you-smarter
http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130129/srep01154/full/srep01154.html
http://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/do-sports-make-you-smarter-study-finds-athletes-039-brains-have-more-gray-matter/gray-matter-athlete-neurons-bochum-/c3s11034/#.VIGZbDHF-Op
I would also like to know what the study has been set out to prove only because i have been an athlete since i was first able to play sports. On a personal level I feel as though there is almost no answer to this due to the fact that it is different for each person. For example during my sports seasons while i felt as though i was overwhelmed with practice and homework and things i was actually on average able to preform better within my courses. Yet I also know people who are athletes who do better during the off season when they have more time for school. So this idea is definitely something that could use more research as the topic is very interesting.
I agree 100% with Megan here. The overall purpose of this experiment seems unknown and I am not sure any of the things you listed in your article can be used to classify someone as being “smarter”. Obviously, athletes will have the best hand eye coordination out of the three test groups so I believe that part of the experiment is extremely inconclusive. I think at a younger age, serious athletes are less smart than the average person because of the fact that they have less time to study because of the time being spent playing sports. However, I believe the idea of overall response time and how quickly your brain can react is a interesting topic to think about when comparing athletes and non athletes
I’d be interested to know what the study you mentioned set out to prove. Was their hypothesis the same as your title, that sports make you smarter? Based on their experiment they were not testing actual brain power, but rather just hand-eye coordination. Which begs the question if hand-eye coordination is an indication of how smart we are. Although the study you cited doesn’t explore this idea, it’s an interesting one.