The effect of sports expertise on the performance of orienteering athletes’ real scene image recognition and their visual search characteristics

As a sport conducted in dynamically changing natural environments, orienteering places high demands on athletes' cognitive processing abilities and visual search efficiency. However, previous studies on orienteering have been primarily limited by the use of fixed stimulus materials on computer screens, which are unable to fully simulate authentic sports scenarios. To better understand the sports expertise of orienteering athletes in terms of their real scene image recognition performance and visual search characteristics, this study recruited 40 orienteering athletes, both experts and novices, as participants. By utilizing eye-tracking technology and setting observation points in real-world scenarios to conduct image recognition task tests, the ecological validity of the experiment was further enhanced. The results showed that the experts demonstrated a high level of accuracy and a short response time, with visual search characteristics including few saccade counts, low fixation frequency, concentrated fixation points, simple and clear fixation paths, and higher visual search efficiency. This study further reveals that long-term specialized training will lead to the formation of a unique cognitive structure related to the specific knowledge and long-term memory required by expert orienteering athletes, thereby promoting the development of expert advantage.