Effects of visual occlusion training on perceptual-cognitive skills in young football players

Sport science researchers have found that expert performers in many sports use superior perceptual cognitive skills than novices to recognise patterns in opponents' actions, thereby priming rapid response selection and motor execution. Despite this, little is known about the development of perceptual-cognitive skills in youth players. Different technologies and methods for measuring perceptual-cognitive skills have been developed to improve these skills. After decades of research, technologies appear as viable training products that coaches and sport psychologists can use with youth athletes. This article describes the effectiveness of visual occlusion as a training tool for improving perceptual-cognitive sport skills. The aim is to investigate how restricted visual feedback affects performance in a football-specific skills assessment that incorporates the coupling of football a-specific perceptual information with football-specific motor actions. Articles derived from Google Scholar, PubMed and Scopus search engines and databases were reviewed. Keywords included youth football, visual occlusion, perceptual-cognitive skills. Only the articles that met the inclusion criteria (relevance of the topic, visual occlusion techniques as a training tool) were selected for systematic review. Data quality and validity were assessed by examining the methodologies of each study and comparing studies of similar populations using the PRISMA method. Findings demonstrate that visual cognition and football experience mediate the relationship between age and decision making independently, which indicates that they each influence different parts of the decision-making process. These results highlight the importance of the development of perceptual cognitive skills in young football players. Future research should further investigate the development of these skills and their underlying factors in different kinds of sports.