REVIEW article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1664572
This article is part of the Research TopicEmerging technologies in sports performance: data acquisition and analysisView all 8 articles
Does the "Learning Effect" Caused by Digital Devices Exaggerate Sports Visual Training Outcomes? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
- 2China Institute of Sport Science, Beijing, China
- 3Xinxin School, The Affiliated High School of Peking University, Beijing, China
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Objective: Digital-based visual training (VT) is widely employed to improve visual-cognitive performance, yet its efficacy may be confounded by the "learning effect". Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted across PubMed, Web of Science, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, and Cochrane Library, covering all studies published up to May 8, 2025. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles written in English. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that included both baseline and post-intervention measures of visual-cognitive performance were eligible. Subgroup analysis was conducted based on the presence or absence of task similarity between training and testing conditions, to assess potential bias introduced by the "learning effect". Results: The search identified 3,798 articles, of which 33 RCTs involving 1,048 participants met the inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. VT was found to significantly improve visual attention, reaction time, decision-making time, decision-making accuracy, and eye–hand coordination. Subgroup analyses revealed that studies classified as "learning effect present" (LE+) consistently reported substantially larger effect sizes than those without (LE−). Significant between-group differences were observed for visual attention (SMD = 1.65 vs. 0.07; p = 0.00), reaction time (SMD = 2.66 vs. 0.50; p = 0.00), and decision-making accuracy (SMD = 1.46 vs. 0.62; p = 0.03), indicating that task similarity may artificially inflate performance outcomes. Conclusion: These findings indicate that observed improvements may reflect task familiarity rather than true cognitive enhancement. To improve evaluation validity, future studies should avoid task redundancy, incorporate retention testing, and adopt structurally distinct outcome measures.
Keywords: digital-based training, visual-cognitive skills, practice effect, tasksimilarity, Sports vision training
Received: 12 Jul 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Guo, Yang, Qiu and Yuan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tinggang Yuan, China Institute of Sport Science, Beijing, China
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