AUTHOR=Yuan Rui , Sun He , Soh Kim Geok , Mohammadi Alireza , Toumi Zakaria , Zhang Zhendong 

TITLE=The effects of mental fatigue on sport-specific motor performance among team sport athletes: A systematic scoping review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1143618

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1143618

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Background: The psychobiological state known as mental fatigue is by engaging in mentally taxing activities for an extended period of time, which is typically found in team sports, of the high cognitive demand and unpredictable environment. It increases the perception of effort and influences executive functions, impairing sport-specific performance in athletes. However, the consequences of mental fatigue on sport-specific motor performance (SSMP) among athletes in team sports remain unclear.
Objective: This scoping review seeks to find and map research publications that investigate the effect of mental fatigue on SSMP in team sports.
Methods: Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed were searched as the main databases, and CENTRAL, Psychology, and Behavioural Sciences Collection, SPORTDicus obtained from EBSCOhost, as well as grey literature was searched for relevant literature and Google Scholar. Cognitive tasks before the SSMP exam are the focus of the selected literature on mental exhaustion. Only experiments testing mental and non-mental exhaustion were chosen.
Results: Twelve studies fulfill the requirement of selection criteria. SSMP in team sports, including soccer, basketball, cricket, and Australian football mainly is examined as physical and technical performance. The decline of physical activity is relevant with higher level PRE, while decreased technical performance is related to impaired attention resources shown as visual perceptual.
Conclusion: Mental fatigue adversely influences SSMP in team sports. The most relevant theory for future study to examine the impacts of mental fatigue on team-sport athletes could be the psychological model of exercise and its potential extension on attention resources, rather than the traditional ‘catastrophe’ theory.