Cognitive-behavioural processes during route previewing in bouldering.

INTRODUCTION: In the Olympic climbing discipline of bouldering, climbers can preview boulders before actually climbing them. Whilst such pre-climbing route previewing is considered as central to subsequent climbing performance, research on cognitive-behavioural processes during the preparatory phase in the modality of bouldering is lacking. The present study aimed at extending existing findings on neural efficiency processes associated with advanced skill level during motor activity preparation by examining cognitive-behavioural processes during the previewing of boulders. METHODS: Intermediate (n = 20), advanced (n = 20), and elite (n = 20) climbers were asked to preview first, and then attempt two boulders of different difficulty levels (boulder 1: advanced difficulty; boulder 2: elite difficulty). During previewing, climbers' gaze behaviour was gathered using a portable eye-tracker. RESULTS: Linear regression revealed for both boulders a significant relation between participants' skill levels and both preview duration and number of scans during previewing. Elite climbers more commonly used a superficial scan path than advanced and intermediate climbers. In the more difficult boulder, both elite and advanced climbers showed longer preview durations, performed more scans, and applied less often a superficial scan path than in the easier boulder. CONCLUSION: Findings revealed that cognitive-behavioural processes during route previewing are associated with climbing expertise and boulder difficulty. Superior domain-specific cognitive proficiency seems to account for the expertise-processing-paradigm in boulder previewing, contributing to faster and more conscious acquisition of perceptual cues, more efficient visual search strategies, and better identification of representative patterns among experts.

Mechanisms underlying superior memory of skilled climbers in indoor bouldering.

INTRODUCTION: Bouldering is an Olympic climbing discipline that encompasses short climbing sequences, referred to as boulders, set up on low-height bouldering walls. Memory plays a critical role in bouldering, as it allows climbers to develop climbing strategies, to mentally rehearse climbing movements, and to recall climbing holds of boulders. This study extends previous research on memory in climbing and bouldering with the purpose to elucidate potential mechanisms underlying superior memory abilities of skilled climbers. METHODS: Sixty climbers with intermediate (n = 20), advanced (n = 20), or elite (n = 20) skill levels were tasked to memorise the climbing holds and movements of a boulder, set up on a spray wall and demonstrated by a bouldering expert. RESULTS: Findings revealed a positive relation between the participants' bouldering skills and sport-specific movement knowledge and both, the number of climbing holds and movements they were able to memorise following a two-minute rehearsal period. CONCLUSION: Consistent with previous research, bouldering expertise is positively associated with the ability to memorise domain-specific information. Superior memory abilities among skilled climbers appear to be associated with climbing-specific movement knowledge, coupled with better mental visualisation and increased attentional focus towards functional aspects of boulders.

Effects of decision-making on indoor bouldering performances: A multi-experimental study approach.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether novice, intermediate, and advanced bouldering athletes would differ in their decision-making abilities and to what extent distinct problem-solving tactics would affect the athletes' bouldering performances. Seventy-seven male bouldering athletes participated in a multi-experimental study with the conceptual replication of three bouldering tasks. Participants were allocated according to their ability levels to the novice group (NOV with n = 18), the intermediate group (INT with n = 18), or the advanced group (ADV with n = 41). The data collected for movement analysis via video consisted of the pre-ascent decision-making times, the number of movement deviations from the best solution, the number of movement mistakes, the average gripping times, the bouldering times to the top, the number of successful ascents, and the number of attempts to complete the tasks. Results among all three experiments revealed shorter decision-making times, fewer movement mistakes, and shorter average gripping and bouldering times to the top in the ADV group than in the NOV group and the INT group. Furthermore, participants from the ADV group demonstrated fewer movement deviations than participants from the NOV group (in all three experiments) and the INT group (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2). Moreover, participants from the ADV group and the INT group were characterized, in all three experiments, by a higher number of successful ascents and a lower number of attempts to complete the tasks than participants from the NOV group. In total, these findings emphasize that accomplished decision-making abilities consist of a key determinant in successful indoor bouldering performances.