The Importance of Deeper Insights
Athlete performance is not only about physical prowess but also cognitive sharpness. In this article, we will delve into each cognitive measure that Soma NPT monitors to demonstrate why looking at more than one measure is crucial when analyzing an athlete's cognitive data. The measures we will cover include reaction time, speed, variation, accuracy, RCS, RPE, RME, and RMF.
Reaction Time: Vital but Variable
Reaction time is a well-known cognitive measure, but it may not always be a comprehensive representation of an athlete's cognitive performance. This is because reaction time can be highly variable, making it hard to draw conclusions about the athlete's performance. To tackle this issue, Soma Analytics provides coaches with deeper insights into an athlete's cognitive performance by displaying trends of all cognitive measures with Minute on Minute (MoM) breakdowns, in addition to the overall grand mean data for each cognitive task. This allows coaches to see the mean data for a given task and also how variable an athlete is performing every minute of their cognitive training.
Speed: Normalizing the Data Distribution
Speed is a statistical measure that is computed to indicate a more distinct pattern in an athlete's performance. It achieves this by normalizing the distribution of the data, which minimizes the influence of any outliers in the data. This normalization makes the results easier to interpret and enhances their accuracy.
Variation: Measuring Consistency
The coefficient of variation (CV) is a statistical measure of the relative dispersion of data points in a data series around the mean. Variation measures the degree of variation between testing trials in an individual athlete's repeated measurements. Variation is the most important data point to identify changes in cognitive performance, as it indicates how consistent the athlete is performing. The lower the variation, the more consistent the athlete is, and the better their cognitive performance.
Accuracy: The Proportion of Correct Responses
Accuracy measures how accurately an athlete is performing. Knowing the accuracy of an athlete over the duration of the cognitive task and if and when accuracy starts to decline provides insights into the consistency of their cognitive performance. Analyzing the time-varying MoM data trends can show how consistent an athlete is over the duration of the task.
RCS: Understanding the Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off
RCS is a key performance measure that determines the number of correct responses made by an athlete in a second. It's important because it takes into account the speed-accuracy trade-off, which means that an athlete's ability to respond quickly and accurately will affect their RCS score. A high RCS indicates that the athlete is able to respond accurately and quickly, whereas a low RCS indicates that the athlete is making mistakes or responding too slowly.
To Summarise
🧠 Athlete performance is not only about physical prowess, but also cognitive sharpness.
📊 Soma NPT provides coaches with deeper insights into an athlete's cognitive performance, displaying trends of all cognitive measures with Minute on Minute (MoM) breakdowns.
⏱️ Reaction time can be highly variable, but Soma NPT provides coaches with MoM data for each cognitive task.
📈 Speed is a statistical measure that normalizes the distribution of data, making it easier to interpret and enhances accuracy.
📉 Variation measures the degree of variation between testing trials in an individual athlete's repeated measurements and is essential to identify changes in cognitive performance.
✅ Accuracy measures how accurately an athlete is performing and analyzing time-varying MoM data trends can show how consistent an athlete is over the duration of the task.
⚡ RCS is a key performance measure that determines the number of correct responses made by an athlete in a second, taking into account the speed-accuracy trade-off.
👉 To comprehensively analyze an athlete's cognitive performance, coaches need to look at more than just reaction time. Soma NPT provides deeper insights into various cognitive measures, including speed, variation, accuracy and RCS, which are all crucial to understanding an athlete's cognitive performance.