The Effect of Arousal Levels during Different Learning Stages on Eye-Hand Coordination Task Performance in Physical Education Students

In previous studies, the effect of arousal on performance has been investigated. However, whether arousal during learning stages affects bimanual coordination has not been investigated. Therefore, the present research aimed to investigate the effect of arousal levels during different learning stages on the performance of the hand-eye coordination task.

For this purpose, 36 male physical education students aged 20-35 were conveniently selected and based on normal IQ, normal trait anxiety, and right-handedness, were matched into three Low Arousal, Normal Arousal, and High Arousal groups. The study involved pre-test, post-test, retention, and transfer stages. In the pre-test stage, the participants performed 10 trials of the eye-hand coordination task. The training period consisted of 10 sessions and 50 trials per session, in which at the end of each session 10 trials were recorded as performance. The retention and transfer tests were performed 24 hours after the last training session. The data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis of variance, one-way analysis of variance, and Tukey's post hoc tests.

The results of the present study showed that high, normal, and low arousal levels have a significant effect on the duration of the eye-hand coordination task during the cognitive, association, and automatic stages, and also the time of the eye-hand coordination task was improved.

According to the results of the study, it is suggested that educators use these arousal stimulation effects to improve the performance and learning of athletes in pursuit tasks.