Validation of a Novel Reaction Time Test Specific for Military Personnel

in Motor Control

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Danica Janicijevic Research Academy of Human Biomechanics, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Faculty of Sports Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, The Research Centre, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

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Sergio Miras-Moreno Department of Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0235-2099
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Alejandro Pérez-Castilla SPORT Research Group (CTS-1024), CERNEP Research Center, University of Almería, Almería, Spain
Department of Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Almería, Almería, Spain

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Jesús Vera CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

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Beatriz Redondo CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

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Raimundo Jiménez CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

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Amador Garcia-Ramos Department of Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Conditioning, Faculty of Education, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/mc.2022-0034
Keywords:
neurocognitive abilities; reliability; sensitivity; soldiers
First Published Online:
18 Nov 2022
In Print:
Volume 27: Issue 2
Page Range:
314–326
Restricted access

A military-specific reaction time (RT) test was developed to explore its reliability and sensitivity to discriminate between military personnel and sport science students. Fifteen male professional Spanish soldiers and 16 male sport science students completed two RT test modalities: military-specific and nonspecific RT tests. For each RT test modality, both the Simple (i.e., one stimulus, one response) and the Go, No-Go RT (i.e., true, and false stimuli, one response) were tested. The military-specific RT test consisted of a video presented through virtual reality glasses of a forest environment in which soldiers would appear from behind different bushes (stimuli) and the response consisted of pressing the button of a gun-shaped mouse (when they saw a soldier pointing a rifle at them). Both Simple and Go, No-Go RT reached acceptable reliability in both populations (coefficient of variation ≤ 9.64%). Military personnel presented a lower RT than sport science students during the military-specific RT test (p ≤ .001), while no differences were obtained during the nonspecific RT test. RT values were not significantly correlated between the military-specific and nonspecific RT tests (r ≤ .02). These findings collectively suggest that the novel military-specific RT test is an ecologically valid alternative to evaluate the information processing abilities of military personnel.

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