Investigation of Alpha Band Activity in Self-Paced and Externally-Paced Tasks: A Fitts and Posner Perspective

This study explored Alpha band activity during automaticity in self- and externally-paced basketball tasks, per the Fitts and Posner model. Twenty male basketball players volunteered, split into elite and trained groups. Alpha band power was analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA (α = 0.05). Results showed elite athletes had greater Alpha band activation than the trained group across both tasks. Alpha band activation was also higher in the free-throw task compared to pass-catching. This difference was more pronounced in the elite group; the trained group showed no significant Alpha band activity difference between tasks. Detailed elite group analysis revealed the free-throw task elicited higher Alpha band power in most cortical regions (excluding temporal and occipital areas) compared to pass-catching. Alpha band activity for the free-throw task was greater in the seconds leading up to execution, but no difference was observed between the two tasks during the actual execution. While self-paced findings align with the general neural efficiency hypothesis, elite Alpha band modulations during externally-paced tasks are better explained by the net neural efficiency and pulsed inhibition hypotheses. Overall, these findings highlight the need to revise neural-efficiency accounts from self-paced skills, explicitly considering perceptual-attentional processing demands imposed by dynamic, reactive, externally paced tasks.