ABSTRACT
The authors’ aim was to compare interhemispheric transfer time between 2 groups: highly skilled sportsmen and control subjects. Left- and right-handed individuals were included in the study. The Poffenberger paradigm was used to measure the crossed–uncrossed difference, representing the time to transfer information from one hemisphere to the other. No difference in laterality was found, but the results revealed a greater crossed–uncrossed difference in the skilled sportsmen than in the controls. The authors suggest that this may be due to more highly developed within-hemisphere integration of inputs and outputs, at the expense of cross-hemisphere integration.
Notes
Some individuals showed negative CUDs, This can be due to dominant ipsilateral control, or can reflect variation in mean RTs. One approach to this problem is to replace negative values by zeros. When this was done, an analysis of covariance still showed mean CUD to be larger for the sports group (8.343 ms, SD = 9.326 ms) than for the controls (3.317 ms, SD = 4.784 ms), F(1, 57) = 6.57, p = .013.