Functional brain asymmetry and cognitive strategies in sports single combats

Issues of individual typological classification on the basis of human brain hemisphere organization, which is the basis for optimizing professional orientation, sports selection and individual approach in the process of long-term training. Objective. Study of the relationship of functional brain asymmetry with cognitive strategies of athletes in martial arts. Methods. Testing, experimental studies, statistical methods. Results. The study involved 79 highly skilled athletes specializing in Greco-Roman and free-style wrestling. The group of research methods included determination of functional hemispheric asymmetry of the brain using the "field-dependent" test (the version of "Color & Word Test"). To study the state of cognitive processes of verbal stimuli perception the method of "Establishment of regularities" was used. Characteristics of visual perception of nonverbal stimuli and operational thinking were evaluated by the method of "Perceptual Speed". It was found that the functional asymmetry of the brain in highly skilled athletes is reflected in the higher field dependence on the influence of external stimuli ("adaptive" cognitive strategy of perception and processing of information), whereas the presence of symmetry of the brain in athletes is reflected in the higher field independency of the influence of information from external environment ("autonomous" cognitive strategy of perception and processing of information). The results indicate that autonomous cognitive strategy is characterized by greater possibilities for the manifestation of cognitive functions, in particular, the better ability to quickly and qualitatively perceive and process external information, as compared to athletes with functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres.