The mental ability of an athlete is as crucial as their physical performance. Achievement in high performance sport requires an appropriate ‘state of mind’, which is trained alongside the physical activity. However, quantification of mental state is needed to identify, train and improve it through coaching. With the advent of a new generation of portable, compact EEGs we can measure the neurocognitive activity of an athlete’s brain. We present evidence suggesting that the ‘state of mind’ of an athlete can be measured and compared. Measurements are taken from youth, near elite and elite (GB team) archers investigating:

• quantification of archer EEG signals
• correlation of EEG data across shots
• correlation of EEG data across archers

Results demonstrate that there are measureable changes in EEG patterns during a shot with evidence suggesting that the patterns vary as a function of skill level, but not necessarily as a function of score.

This work was sponsored by the Surrey EPSRC KTA award and was done in collaboration with

• Matthew Casey & Alan Yau, Department of Computing, University of Surrey
• Keith M Barfoot, Alpha-Active Ltd
• Andrew Callaway, Centre for Event & Sport Research, Bournemouth University