Experts in fast-ball sports reduce anticipation timing cost by developing inhibitory control

The present study was conducted to examine the relationship between expertise in movement correction and rate of movement reprogramming within limited time periods, and to clarify the specific cognitive processes regarding superior reprogramming ability in experts. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in baseball experts (n = 7) and novices (n = 7) while they completed a predictive task. The task was to manually press a button to coincide with the arrival of a moving target. The target moved at a constant velocity, and its velocity was suddenly decreased in some trials. Under changed velocity conditions, the baseball experts showed significantly smaller timing errors and a higher rate of timing reprogramming than the novices. Moreover, ERPs in baseball experts revealed faster central negative deflection and augmented frontal positive deflection at 200 ms (N200) and 300 ms (Pd300) after target deceleration, respectively. Following this, peak latency of the next positive component in the central region (P300b) was delayed. The negative deflection at 200 ms, augmented frontal positive deflection, and late positive deflection at 300 ms have been interpreted as reflecting stimulus detection, motor inhibition, and stimulus–response translation processes. Taken together, these findings suggest that the experts have developed movement reprogramming to avoid anticipation cost, and this is characterized by quick detection of target velocity change, stronger inhibition of the planned, incorrect response, and update of the stimulus–response relationship in the changed environment.