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What boxing-related stimuli reveal about responsebehaviourGiovanni Ottobonia, Gabriele Russob & Alessia Tessariaa Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italyb School of Pharmacy, Biotechnology and Motor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna,ItalyPublished online: 11 Nov 2014.

To cite this article: Giovanni Ottoboni, Gabriele Russo & Alessia Tessari (2014): What boxing-related stimuli reveal aboutresponse behaviour, Journal of Sports Sciences, DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2014.977939

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What boxing-related stimuli reveal about response behaviour

GIOVANNI OTTOBONI1, GABRIELE RUSSO2 & ALESSIA TESSARI1

1Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy and 2School of Pharmacy, Biotechnology and MotorSciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

(Accepted 14 October 2014)

AbstractWhen two athletes meet inside the ropes of the boxing ring to fight, their cognitive systems have to respond as quickly aspossible to a manifold of stimuli to assure victory. In the present work, we studied the pre-attentive mechanisms, which formthe basis of an athlete’s ability in reacting to an opponent’s punches. Expert boxers, beginner boxers and people with noexperience of boxing performed a Simon-like task where they judged the colour of the boxing gloves worn by athletes inattack postures by pressing two lateralised keys. Although participants were not instructed to pay attention to the direction ofthe punches, beginner boxers’ responses resembled a defence-related pattern, expert boxers’ resembled counterattacks,whereas non-athletes’ responses were not influenced by the unrelated task information. Results are discussed in the light ofan expertise-related action simulation account.

Keywords: boxing, expertise, action anticipation, pre-attentive coding

Boxing is a combat sport that involves two athletesfighting for the victory. To fulfil such aim, eachathlete must be able to adapt quickly to changingevents: mentally anticipate their opponent’s actionsand react to external stimulations while simulta-neously attempting to hinder opponent’s tactics. Allthese goals must be pursued in very short lapse oftime, as boxing, like other combat sports (e.g.,Savate, Karate and Taekwondo), is an open-skillsport characterised by very fast movements. Fromthe beginning of training, indeed, boxing coachesrecommend that their athletes pay close attentionto cues coming from their opponent’s body postureand movements, as these suggest how best to planthe most effective responses in advance (e.g.,Kärrlander, 2010).

The experimental evidence supporting such anadvantage has recently increased (e.g., Abernethy,Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001; Ericsson & Lehmann,1996; Simon & Chase, 1973; Williams & Davids,1998; Williams & Ericsson, 2005). It was shown,for example, that athletes discriminate the visualstimuli occurring in the region of the space wherethey are used to attend to actions typical of theirsport. For this reason, volleyball players best discri-minate stimuli that occur in the two top hemifieldsrather than those in the two bottom ones. By

contrast, football players better discriminated thestimuli occurring in the lower parts of their visualfield (Nicoletti & Umiltà, 1994). More recently, thenature of sport-related advantages has been refinedand centres on the amount of motor expertise theathletes gained (e.g., Gorman, Abernethy, & Farrow,2011). Indeed, when matched for the level of visualexperience, athletes were shown to be better thannon-athletes (e.g., coaches and journalists) in pre-dicting the outcome of sport-related actions (e.g.,Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi, 2008). The rea-son for this capability resides in the fact that theywere better at basing their decisions on minimalkinematic cues extracted from the bodies performingthe actions (e.g., Tomasino, Maieron, Guatto,Fabbro, & Rumiati, 2013). Moreover, by applyingtranscranial magnetic simulation on the brain of ath-letes and non-athletes, the motor system appeared torespond differently: when the motor areas of athleteswere stimulated, they responded more intensivelythan those of the controls (Aglioti et al., 2008).Such physiological effects were interpreted as a sortof motor resonance developed through the commonmotor experiences that observers and actors share.

Thus far, in the domain of boxing, the ability ofboxers to code and respond to sport-related actionshas been less well documented. One study involved

Correspondence: Giovanni Ottoboni and Alessia Tessari, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Via Berti Pichat 5, 40127, Bologna, Italy.E-mails: giovanni.ottoboni@gmail.com (G. Ottoboni); alessia.tessari@unibo.it (A. Tessari)

Journal of Sports Sciences, 2014http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2014.977939

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

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athletes of Savate – a French martial art in whichboth punches and kicks are used (Ripoll, Kerlirzin,Stein, & Reine, 1995). Boxers were presented withvideos displaying Savate attacks and asked to movea joystick according to the response that they wouldhave executed. Reaction times (RTs) and responseaccuracy were analysed as a function of boxers’level of expertise – low or high – and the complexityof the visual actions. The two groups differed onlyin relation to the complexity of the actions.Specifically, only expert boxers were able torespond accurately to the stimuli, but this advan-tage disappeared in the analysis of the RTs. Eyemovements were further analysed and revealedunexpected results. Looking at complex scenes,the parts of the opponent’s body that were moretracked by Savate boxers’ fovea differed accordingto the level of their expertise: Expert boxers trackedopponents’ heads; beginners tended to track theopponents’ arms. These results suggested that thelevels of training influenced the way in which ath-letes observed the opponents’ bodies. In fact, headmovements are very informative because of thekinematic chains that constrain body movements(Michalak, Mischnat, & Teismann, 2014;Thomas, 2004), and this is particularly true in thecase of punches and kicks, which in order to beexecuted with maximum force, they greatly affectboxer’s centre of gravity, and therefore boxer’shead (e.g., Thullier & Moufti, 2004). This couldbe the reason why by looking at the head, expertboxers appeared to extract and anticipate oppo-nents’ arms position very efficiently. Alternatively,it could also be the case that experienced boxersmay have learnt to code the arm positions throughtheir peripheral vision, i.e., the type of vision that isthe most important for movement detection (Bartz,1966; Doshi & Trivedi, 2012; Reichenbach,Franklin, Zatka-Haas, & Diedrichsen, 2014).Complementarily with this last hypothesis, itcould be advanced that boxers may have developedthe ability to disengage attention from the centre oftheir field of vision to the periphery, as it happensin other sports (Nougier, Ripoll, & Stein, 1989;Williams & Davids, 1998). However, despite thesehypotheses, the study seems to highlight that theadvice of boxing coaches tends to remain unaccom-plished. Coaches usually advise their athletes to payattention to the lower extremities of the opponents’body as these are informative sources about oppo-nents’ attacks; however, as the preceding resultssuggest, athletes tended to track the heads of theopponents more.

As already reported, data collected on boxing areexiguous and, as in the example we have highlighted,these involved complex fighting sequences. Hence,

the present study aimed at shedding new light on themechanisms that form the basis of response selec-tion. In particular, we focused on the study of thepre-attentive mechanisms that are involved in theprocessing of spatial information in boxing oppo-nents’ attacks. This was achieved by adapting anexperimental paradigm that appeared useful in thestudy of different styles of bodily information codingby athletes and non-athletes (Tessari, Ottoboni, &Nicoletti, 2013).

The hypothesis guiding the present study builtupon a study that showed when presented withharmful body stimuli people tend to respond tothem by moving the body part that is spatially con-gruent (Tessari, Ottoboni, Mazzatenta, Merla, &Nicoletti, 2012). In other words, when a left(palm-viewed) hand of a potential aggressorapproaches their face, normal individuals’ responsetends to be faster and more accurate when movingtheir right hand than left. On the contrary, theymove faster and better their left hands when aright-palm hand seems to approach their face. Onthe basis of these results, we investigated how poten-tially harmful boxing-related stimuli might be codedby athletes and non-athletes. By presenting our par-ticipants with images of punching boxers, who havejust realised the punch, we investigated whethersport-related experience might play a role in mod-ulating spontaneous responses. We expected to eli-cit similar patterns of response in all the participantsif the mechanism of reaction described by Tessariet al. (2012) is hard-wired into people’s repertoire ofresponses (i.e., despite the experience they had withthe target stimuli). On the other hand, if sportexperience plays a role in modulating the ability toread bodily postures and to plan motor responses,we might expect different patterns of results accord-ing to an individual’s level of experience. Indeed,following an opponent’s attack, boxers usuallycounterattack, as the final goal of boxing is theknockout. However, beginners might exhibit similarbehaviour to non-athletes as their boxing techniqueis still in development and display behaviour resem-bling natural defence as it emerges when normalpeople are tested with body stimuli conveying nega-tive emotions (Tessari et al., 2012).

Experiment

Ethics statement

The experiment was approved by the PsychologyDepartment’s ethical committee of the Universityof Bologna, and participants gave written informedconsent.

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Methods

Participants

Thirty-six participants took part in the study. Theywere all male and right-handed. Fifteen participantshad no experience of sportive boxing (controls); theother participants were amateur athletes – i.e., notprofessional athletes who fight according to theItalian Boxing Federation (Federazione PugilisticaItaliana (FPI)) rules. Thirteen of the participantswere ranked as “experts” and eight as “beginners”according to the FPI scoring system. The FPI scor-ing system awards 4 points for a match victory, 1point for a defeat and 2 points to each fighter for adraw. Once a beginner boxer collects 30 points,their rank increases to expert. At the time of thepresent study, the expert boxers we tested hadcompeted in between 20 and 111 matches(mean = 55.71, s = 26.99), and the beginners hadcompeted in between 1 and 14 matches(mean = 5.54, s = 3.90). The control group wasaged between 21 and 33 (mean = 24.47, s = 4.34);the beginners between 17 and 31 (mean = 22.75,s = 4.56); and the experts between 18 and 32(mean = 25.54, s = 4.82). There was no differenceamong the age of the three groups (F(2,33) = .86, P = .43).

Stimuli and apparatus

The stimuli used in the present study were photo-graphs showing a boxing athlete executing threeattacks: a straight punch, an uppercut punch and ahook punch (see Figure 1). The boxer was photo-graphed while wearing shorts and shoes. The photo-graphs were then turned to greyscale, which allowedthe gloves to be coloured red or blue. Each imagewas then flipped on its horizontal access in order tocreate two images to counterbalance potential biasgenerated by the orthodox stance adopted by theathlete we photographed. Each stimulus was

presented 5 times, giving a total of 120 stimuli: 5sets of 3 attacks (straight, uppercut and hook), 2punching hands (left and right), 2 stances (orthodoxand southpaw) and 2 colours colouring the boxinggloves (red and blue).

The stimuli were presented on a 15ʺ LCD com-puter screen display of a HP notebook 2.53 GHz, 4GB of RAM, video card ATI Mobility Radeon HD5470. Stimuli presentation and responses collectionwere controlled by E.Prime 2.0 software.

Procedure

Participants were seated in front of the computerscreen and directed to code the colour of the glovesby pressing the “x” key of the keyboard with their lefthand and the “.” key with their right hand. Half theparticipants were instructed to press the “x” for redand “.” for blue, and the other half received theopposite instruction.

At the beginning of the experiment, participantsprovided information about their ages, the dominanthand and, only for the boxing athletes, the type ofstance they adopted (orthodox or southpaw) and thenumber of matches in which they had competed.

Each trial began with a fixation cross displayed onthe centre of the screen for 1000 ms. Subsequently,the stimulus image was displayed and stayed on thescreen until the participant responded. Following theresponse, feedback was provided, displaying the RTor the word “incorrect” for an incorrect answer. Thefeedback remained on the screen for 1500 ms.

Analysis

We performed two separate analyses on accuracyand RTs. The data were analysed using aUnivariate Analysis of the Variance (UniANOVA)with Group (experts, beginners and controls) asbetween-participants factor, Punch (left or right asthey are labelled according to the body-centred

Figure 1. Some of the stimuli used in the task. In the three pictures on the left, the boxer is wearing red gloves, and in the three pictures onthe right, he is wearing blue gloves. As the model we photographed adopted the orthodox stance, after we took the pictures of him punching,we flipped each picture horizontally in order to double the attacks and to counterbalance the effect that could rise from using a single stance.

Boxing-related responses 3

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coordinates of the attacker) and participants’Response to the glove colour (left response vs. rightresponse) as within-participant factors.

Accuracy

Neither Group (F(2, 33) = .99, ηp2 = .033, P = .38),

Punch (F(1, 33) = .34, ηp2 = .001, P = .56) nor

Response (F(1, 33) = 1.81, ηp2 = .003, P = .18)

factors were significant. Also not significant werethe two-way interactions (Ps > .05). However, thethree-way interaction was significant (F(2,33) = 5.37, ηp

2 = 0.032, P < .01).Post hoc analyses were undertaken in order to

study the three-way interaction. DifferentUniANOVAs accounting for Punch and Responseswere calculated for each group.

Analysing the performance of participants with noexperience of boxing, no difference emerged eitherbetween the punch’s directions (Punch factor: F(1,14) = 49, ηp

2 = .008, P = .50) or between theresponses (F(1, 14) = 4.2, ηp

2 = .038, P = .06).Moreover, the two-way interaction was also notsignificant (F(1, 14) = 2.4, ηp

2 = .029, P = .14).For what concerns the performance of the group of

beginners, none of the single factors were signifi-cant (Punch, F(1, 7) = .26, ηp

2 = .003 P = .63;Response, F(1, 7) = .20, ηp

2 = .03, P = .66), buttheir interaction was (F(1, 7) = 28.00, ηp

2 = .046,P = .001). When the performance of the group ofexpert was analysed, even here, no single factorappeared significant (Punch, F(1, 12) = .01,ηp

2 = .001, P = .91; Response, F(1, 12) = .14,ηp

2 = .012, P = .71) but their interaction was (F(1, 12) = 6.00, ηp

2 = .034, P = .03). As Figure 2(A)shows, beginner and expert boxers responded dif-ferently: for beginner boxers, the responses given bypressing the response keys located on the same sideas the punches (i.e., left responses – right punches,as they operate on the left-hand side of the obser-ver, and right responses – left punches, as theyoperate on the right-hand side of the observer)were more accurate than the opposite pairings; forexpert boxers, the responses provided by pressingthe response keys located on the opposite side tothe punches (i.e., left responses – left punches, asthey operate on the right-hand side of the observer;right responses – left punches, as they operate onthe left-hand side of the observer) were more accu-rate than the responses operated on the same side

Figure 2. (A) (a) Accuracy results displayed as a function of punch and response combination in (a) participants with no boxing experience(controls), (b) beginners and (c) experts. Standard errors bars are displayed on the top of each column. (B) Pictorial explanation of the factthat the left punches operate on the right-hand side of the observer and that the right ones operate in the left-hand side of the observer.

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as the punches (see Figure 2(B)). More specifically,using t-test with Bonferroni correction, the group ofbeginners resulted better using their right hand torespond to left punches than to right ones (t(7) = 3.42, P = .01), but no difference emergedin the left responses (t(7) = 1.16, P = .14). Asregards the group of experts, they were only mar-ginally better using their right hand to respond toright punches than to left ones (t(12) = 1.39,P = .09), but no difference emerged in their leftresponse (t(12) = 1.25, P = .12).

Reaction time analysis

Analysis on RTs considered the same factorsdescribed earlier: Group, Punch and Response.The analysis showed a difference according to thelevel of expertise of the three groups (F(2,33) = 5.18, ηp

2 = .222, P = .009, see Figure 3) asit emerged from the pair-wise t-tests withBonferroni correction (controls vs. beginners t(90) = 3.99, P < .001; controls vs. experts t(110) = 3.43, P < .001; beginners vs. controls t(82) = 5.63, P < .001). Differently, the two punchdirections appeared similar (left punch = 416; rightpunch = 415; F(1, 33) = .99, ηp

2 = .001, P = .33),whereas responses with the right hand were fasterthan those with the left hand (411 vs. 419 ms,respectively; F(1, 33) = 5.09, ηp

2 = .008,P = .031). No interaction, either two-way (Punch× Group, F(2, 33) = 1.32, ηp

2 = .001, P > .1;Response × Group, F(2, 33) = .27, ηp

2 = .001,P > .1; Punch × Response, F(1, 33) = .53,ηp

2 = .01, .P > .1) or three-way (Punch ×Response × Group, F(2, 33) = .18; ηp

2 = .01,P > .1, see Table I) resulted as significant.

Conclusion and discussion

The present study aimed to contribute to the knowl-edge surrounding the sport of boxing. Thus far, themajority of the studies focusing on boxing

investigated the residual cognitive and functionalcapacities of athletes who are experienced with thesport (e.g., King, Brughelli, Hume, & Gissane,2014; Mendez, 1995; Zazryn, 2006). Another smallgroup of studies examined the correlation betweenthe psychological aspects of boxers’ personality andfighting (e.g., Lane, Lane, & Kyprianou, 2004), ethi-cal aspects (e.g., Lane, 2008; Woodward, 2011) andemotional aspects involved in the sport (e.g.,Angelini, 2008; Jones, Lane, Bray, Uphill, &Catlin, 2005). However, less attention has beenpaid to the cognitive abilities demonstrated in boxingperformance. For example Ripoll et al. (1995) ana-lysed the attentional mechanisms underlying theinformation encoding and processes of decision-making in Savate boxers. The study focused oncomplex scenes because these emerged to be differ-ently coded by expert fighters. Results showed thatexperts and beginners focused their visual attentionon different parts of opponents’ bodies: the formertended to watch the opponent’s head, the latter theirarms.

However, a study focusing on the very basicaspects underpinning athletes’ performance is nota-ble in its absence. The present research tried to gosome way to filling this gap by presenting expertboxers, beginners and people without experience ofsportive boxing with pictures of boxers in attackingstances.

The study was conducted using an ad hoc mod-ified version of a Simon task. While participantsresponded to the colour of the boxers’ gloves bypressing two lateralised keys, the side from whichthe attack came was expected to modulate theresponse. The modulation might occur accordingto a stimulus-response compatibility effect describedby Tessari et al. (2012). When harmful body stimuliwere staged (i.e., simulating an aggressive actiontowards the participant), the responses provided bymoving the limb that was spatially congruent withthe attack site were facilitated. In other words, parti-cipants were faster and more accurate to move theirright hands than the left ones when a left hand from

Table I. RTs (in ms) displayed as a function of left–right responseand left–right punches as recorded in the three groups we tested.

Punches

Responses Left Right

Left 412 419 ControlsRight 407 408Left 379 380 BeginnersRight 370 358Left 412 419 ExpertRight 407 408

Figure 3. RTs of three groups of participants. Standard errors barsare displayed on the top of each column.

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the palm was approaching them, as it appeared to beexecuted on the right side according to the obser-ver’s point of view. On the contrary, participantsmoved faster and better their left hand when a rightpalm hand was presented. However, when the sti-muli were deprived of their dangerous meaning (as ithappened when the hands were presented from theback views), the responses were not as fast and accu-rate as before.

On the basis of these results, if the stimulus-response compatibility pattern, which is based onprimal defence action, represents a constantmechanism of response – which should be consis-tent irrespective of the level of familiarity the parti-cipants had with the stimuli – constant patterns ofresponses should be displayed across all partici-pants. If, however, experience does in fact play arole, different patterns of response should emergedependent on the participant’s experience level.Specifically, expert boxers are expected to be fasterand more accurate in responses operated contralat-erally to the side of the attack, because once a punchhas been thrown, the best side for the boxer’s coun-terattack is the off-guard side of the opponent’sbody, i.e., the one on the opposite side to thepunch. As regards beginners and non-athletes,given their limited (if any) expertise, they are bothexpected to give defensive responses (such as inTessari et al., 2012), i.e., faster and more accurateresponses provided by the hand that corresponds tothe side of the opponents’ attack.

Results, especially those provided with the domi-nant hand, confirmed the hypothesis about the dif-ference in responses of expert and beginner boxers.Indeed, the former responded more accurately whenthe responses were provided with hands operating onthe contralateral side to the attack (right punchesthat attack on left side – right response; left punchesthat attack on right side – left response); the lattergroup were more accurate when the responses wereprovided with the hands operating on the ipsilateralside to the attack (right punches that attack on leftside – left response; left punches that attack on rightside – right response), which is consistent with thenon-athletes discussed in Tessari et al. (2012).Different from our initial hypothesis, it emergedthat the responses given by non-athletes did notvary according to the sides of the attack, and theydid not respond like the beginners.

Accuracy analysis suggests different mechanismsof response, dependent on participants’ experiencewith the situations represented in the stimuli. Inpeople with no experience of boxing, the picturesof a boxer throwing a punch did not induce anyparticular response: this may be due to the lack ofsaliency that the stimuli has for them. Whereas it hasbeen demonstrated that for stimuli that are salient

for everybody, as they convey bodily emotional pri-mitives (i.e., male hands looking like approachingparticipants’ faces), a similar group of non-athletesreacted as if they were defending themselves (Tessariet al., 2012).

In line with this saliency-related explanation, asthe task-irrelevant features of the stimuli (the punch-ing boxer) have become meaningful with experiencewith the sport, boxers could modulate theirresponses according to the level of expertise theyhad gained. Beginner boxers’ responses resembleddefence behaviour similar to that shown by non-athletes when facing bodily emotional primitives;expert boxers demonstrated a more sophisticatedresponse that showed the automatic activation ofcounterattack-like behaviours.

Furthermore, we might suggest that our resultsare supported by the fight/fight automatic behaviourhypothesis, assuming that the perception of emo-tional stimuli and the activation of the action systemfacilitate the activation of the dominant hand(Borgomaneri, Gazzola & Avenanti, 2013, 2014;Tamietto et al., 2009). In particular, when presentedwith threatening, sport-related stimuli, higher activa-tion is registered in the left motor area than in right(e.g., Borgomaneri et al., 2014). Such differences inbrain activation may explain why the advantage inthe defence/counterattack action was only observedin the dominant right-hand responses.

Summarising, the responses to stimuli depicting(potentially) dangerous events seem to reflect theexperience each group of participants has with therepresented events. Indeed, when non-athletes arerequested to code stimuli that are commensurablydangerous and meaningful to their experience(Tessari et al., 2012), they display defensive beha-viour. In the case of this study, non-athletes did notshow any modulatory defence effect as the stimuliwere not salient (meaningful) to them. On the con-trary, the athletes, who hold both physical and visualexpertise of the stimuli (e.g., Makris & Urgesi, 2014;Tomeo, Cesari, Aglioti, & Urgesi, 2012), respondedto them and different mechanisms were triggeredbased upon their level of expertise, as beginner andexperts responded in opposite ways (i.e., defence orattack, respectively). As will be discussed, the differ-ences recorded in the response accuracy revealed theimportance of the level of motor expertise eachgroup had.

The analysis of the RTs returned a scenario inwhich the responses experts provided were theslowest, those ones provided by the beginnerswere the fastest and the non-athletes’ RTs werein between. According to the accumulator modelof perceptual decision-making, accounting for thedecision-making processes is the basis of motorresponse (e.g., Ratcliff & McKoon, 2008), and

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motor responses are expressed when the amount ofsensory information that has been stored exceedsinternal thresholds. This means that only the visualinformation that has been adequately processedcan be accessed in decision-making processes.However, although this model is explicative ofmuch evidence (e.g., Onat, Açık, Schumann, &König, 2014; Scholte, Ghebreab, Waldorp,Smeulders, & Lamme, 2009), it cannot explainall cases in which (as it is evidenced by our begin-ner boxers) the correct decision is taken in a shorttime frame (e.g., Jolij, Scholte, Van Gaal,Hodgson, & Lamme, 2011; Thorpe, Fize, &Marlot, 1996). The explanation for our resultsneeds to take into account the entire pattern ofresponses and the differing ways participants dis-played of processing stimuli and selectingresponses. Indeed, it is recognised that the morecomplex the movements, the longer they take to beexecuted, imagined and represented (e.g., Prinz,Beisert, & Herwig, 2013). Thus, as the accuracyresults suggest, expert boxers simulated a counter-attack response, and the beginner boxers adefence-related response, and recognising this, wecan easily explain the differences in RTs betweenthe two groups: in order to counterattack in themost advantageous way, for example, in responseto a left fist moving on the right-hand side, theboxer should slip away congruently to the side ofattack and then punch the opponent with the leftfist. To do that, the boxer must locate his centre ofgravity over the right leg and then slide in thisdirection. Comparing the complexity of thesemovements to those of defence, it is clear that theformer takes longer as the latter is more instinctive,primal and does not involve any movements ofcounterattack. In line with this, the extra timeexperts took to respond in a counterattack-resem-bling way might reflect the mental simulations of amore complex and advantageous response gainedthrough their experience. Two further interpreta-tions can be put forward to interpret the extra timethe experts took to respond. First, it might be thecase that experts need more time to mentally pro-cess the stimuli as they scan for the side of theopponent’s body that is off guard when viewinganother boxer’s punch. This case seems to resem-ble the model formerly described, but this time,the deeper analysis is supposed functional to thefollowing mental plan of counterattacking. Second,it may be the case that the mental activation of thecounterattack is time-consuming because expertsmust first suppress the automatic tendency todefend themselves against attack and then mentallyplan the counterattack (Bossuyt, Moors, & deHouwer, 2014; Chen & Bargh, 1999; Karsdorp,Geenen, & Vlaeyen, 2014; Tessari et al., 2012).

At this level of investigation, these two interpreta-tions cannot be disentangled from the previous (i.e.,the simulation interpretation); thus, further researchis needed to test the existence of additive andsequential effects of the two behavioural tendenciesand to rule out possible bias caused by potentialbrain damage in the expert boxer group that couldstretch their RTs (King et al., 2014; MacFlynn,Montgomery, Fenton, & Rutherford, 1984; Stusset al., 1989).

This study suggests that the processes of mentalsimulations might play an important role in the plan-ning of response to critical events. Athletes havealready been proven to better at coding sport-relatedevents than non-athletes, as they have both moremotor expertise (Aglioti et al., 2008; Tessari et al.,2013; Tomasino et al., 2013) and visual expertise(e.g., Makris & Urgesi, 2014; Tomeo et al., 2012).However, this is the first time within the domain ofboxing that opposite behavioural responses havebeen shown within athletes practising the samesport at different levels.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the boxing societies for the kindsupport they provided. In particular, we thankBolonia boxe, Bologna; A.s.d. Boxe le Torri,Bologna; Polisportiva Circolo Dozza, Bologna; A.s.d.Boxe Nicchi, Arezzo; Soc. Sportiva Edera, Ravenna;A.s.d. Pugilistica Tranvieri, Bologna; A.s.d. PugilisticaCarrarese E. Bertola, Carrara; Pugilistica Massese,Massa.

Funding

The study was supported by RFO grant from theUniversity of Bologna assigned to AT and whichGO was involved in.

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