Influence of cognitive-motor expertise on brain dynamics of anticipatory-based outcome processing.

Motor experience plays an important role in the ability to anticipate action outcomes, but little is known about the brain processes through which it modulates the preparation for unexpected events. To address this issue, EEG was employed while table tennis players and novices observed videos of serves in order to predict the expected ball direction based on the kinematics of a model's movement. Furthermore, we manipulated the congruency between the model's body kinematics and the subsequent ball trajectory while assessing the cerebral cortical activity of novices and experts to understand how experts respond to unexpected outcomes. Experts were more accurate in predicting the ball trajecto…