Author(s): FAN, H., HE, D., MA, S., Institution: BEIJING SPORT UNIVERSITY, Country: CHINA, Abstract-ID: 874

Introduction
State anxiety, directly manifested in specific contexts with explicit behaviors, may interfere with basketball athletes’ prefrontal cortical function and impair their cognitive control. This study aims to explore differences in cognitive control among basketball athletes with varying state anxiety levels via the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), and further investigate the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) technology.
Methods
A 2 (state anxiety level: high vs. low) × 4 (stimulus type: AX, AY, BX, BY) mixed experimental design was adopted. Forty elite basketball athletes were randomly divided into a high-state-anxiety group (n=20) and a low-state-anxiety group (n=20). There were no significant differences in training years, age, or trait anxiety between the two groups (p>0.05). State anxiety was induced through a numerical calculation task combined with reward and social evaluation pressure. The AX-CPT task combined with ERPs technology was used to synchronously record behavioral indicators (reaction time, accuracy) and neurophysiological indicators (P3b, CNV, N2, P3a) of the athletes’ cognitive control ability.
Results
At the behavioral level, no significant main effect of state anxiety level or interaction between state anxiety level and stimulus type was observed for reaction time and accuracy (p>0.05), while the main effect of stimulus type was significant: the reaction time of AY trials was significantly longer and the accuracy was significantly lower than those of other trial types (p<0.001), with no significant differences between the two groups in the AX-CPT task (p>0.05). At the neurophysiological level, for proactive control indicators, 2×2 repeated-measures ANOVA showed that for P3b amplitude, the main effect of trial type was significant (P<0.001), the main effect of state anxiety level was not significant (p=0.89>0.05), and their interaction was marginally significant (p=0.088); for CNV amplitude, the main effect of trial type was not significant (p=0.187>0.05), the CNV amplitude of the high-state-anxiety group was significantly lower than that of the low-state-anxiety group (p=0.020), and their interaction was not significant (p=0.964>0.05). For reactive control indicators, no significant differences in N2 and P3a components were found between the two groups (p>0.05).
Conclusion
High state anxiety exerts no significant impact on the behavioral performance of basketball athletes’ cognitive control, yet impairs the neural efficiency of proactive cognitive control and induces a shift toward energy-consuming reactive cognitive strategies. This study provides empirical evidence for the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying athletes’ cognitive regulation under competitive pressure, offering reference value for sport psychological interventions.