The role of generic cognitive skills: An empirical investigation into the association between generic and sport-specific cognitive skills and playing level in youth football.

Abstract

Objectives: Tests of cognitive skills are increasingly used to identify talent in sports such as football, but there is so far little evidence to suggest that those tests are associated with sport-specific cognitive skills and performance. The aim of this study was to establish the degree to which tests of generic cognitive skills are associated with football-specific skill in youth football. Specifically, we (i) established the degree to which tests of generic cognitive skills are associated with sport-specific cognitive skills, and (ii) compared the associations between generic and sport-specific cognitive skills and the playing level of youth footballers.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Methods: Youth football players (U11-U15; N = 110) competing at an elite and sub-elite level conducted two diagnostic tests of generic and one of football-specific cognitive skills. Generic tests were (1) the determination test measuring reactive stress tolerance, and (2) NeurOlympics assessing executive functions and anticipation to produce a Football Intelligence score (FI score). The football-specific test was a 360°-video decision-making test. Multiple regression analyses were used to establish the association between the tests, and logistic regression for their association to playing level (elite vs. sub-elite).

Results: The generic Football Intelligence score showed a small but significant association with football-specific decision making when controlling for age (p = 0.006). However, football-specific decision making (Nagelkerke's R² = 0.34, p < 0.001) had a higher diagnostic validity when predicting the playing level than did the FI score (Nagelkerke's R² = 0.13, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: We found a partial relationship between generic and football-specific cognition and that football-specific decision making better differentiates playing levels than generic cognition. These results contribute to the literature suggesting that sport-specific measures are much better predictors of skill than generic cognitive diagnostics for the purposes of talent identification.