THE INVESTIGATION OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY REACTION TIME IN RACKET SPORTS BY SKILLS AND SEDENTARY

Objective: Performance in racquet sports is closely related to both physical and psychomotor skills. Reaction time is one of the variables assessed in psychomotor skills and is the primary predictor of psychomotor performance evaluation. This study was designed to compare visual and auditory reaction time between badminton, table tennis and tennis players and non-sport sedentary. In addition, in this study, it was researched whether the gender of the athletes was effective on the response time of the players to auditory and visual stimuli. Methods: The study included 56 volunteers, including 36 athletes and 20 sedentary who actively participated in sports for at least 2 years in the badminton, table tennis and tennis skills between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Age, height, body weight, simple visual reaction time and simple auditory reaction time were measured. Results: When visual and auditory reaction times of racquet athletes and sedentary were compared, there was no significant difference between athletes in different branches, whereas sedentary had significantly higher visual and auditory reaction times than all branches (p <0.05). No significant difference was found between the visual and auditory reaction times according to the genders of the same branch athletes (p> 0,05). However, both visual and auditory reaction times of sedantery women were found to be longer than that of males (p <0.05). Conclusion: The results have led to the belief that racquet sports develop neurocognitive brain functions