Effects Of Mental Fatigue And Burnout On Athletes’ Response Monitoring:an ERP Study

Psychological fatigue, including mental fatigue and burnout, is a phenomenon that psychological function cannot remain the former level of mental activity (In other words, psychological function decreases). Psychological fatigue has some negative effects on athletes’training and competition. However, in order to achieve the goals of training and competition, athletes must do a good job in performance monitoring. Performance monitoring means to detect and correct differences between the right response and the actual response, namely, is to detect and correct errors. Response monitoring reflects error processing from autologous response. Negative emotions affect response monitoring greatly. Under mental fatigue or burnout circumstances, whether athletes’response monitoring ability decreases is up for debate (In ERP studies, the amplitude of error related negativity decreases). Three studies (five experiments) were carried out to explore cause-effect relationships of psychological fatigue and response monitoring.The aim of preliminary study was to make certain the Flanker task satisfied to give rise to mental fatigue and ERN. The participants of this study were university students majoring in physical education. This study regarded subjective feelings (difficulty, effort level, degree of fatigue), operational performances (correct rate, reaction time), heart rate variability (frequency domain) as dependent variables, and regarded mental fatigue as independent variable. In experiment1, ten participants operated six separate tasks(Every task was15minutes). The results showed that the first15-minute could be as the non fatigue phase. The Flanker task could evoke a certain amount of errors met the demand of ERN. The six separate tasks could not evoke mental fatigue easily. In experiment2, twenty four participants operated continuously60minute task. The results showed that the fourth15-minute (from46to60minute) could be as the fatigue phase. Then, they were separated averagely into two groups. One group was given relaxed music while the other group was control group. The participants recovered from mental fatigue in the music intervention phase. The aim of study1was to investigate the relationship between psychological fatigue and response monitoring. The participants of this study were university students majoring in physical education. This study regarded operational performances (correct rate, reaction time) and ERN as dependent variables, and regarded psychological fatigue as independent variable. In experiment3, fifteen participants operated continuously60minute task, and then operated15minute task accompanied by relaxed music. From the result of operational performances, the fatigue phase compared with the non fatigue phase showed significant differences, including reaction time(p=.029) and correct rate(p=.046). From the result of ERN, the amplitude of the non fatigue phase was bigger than that of the music intervention phase, the latter was bigger than that of the fatigue phase (p=.000). From the result of early Pe, the amplitude of the non fatigue phase equalled basically to that of the music intervention phase, and they were bigger than that of the fatigue phase. In experiment4, twenty four participants were separated averagely into two groups. One group was burnout group while the other group was no burnout group. They operated15minute task. From the result of operational performances, no burnout group was better than burnout group. From the result of ERN, no burnout group’s amplitude was bigger than that of burnout group, but the difference was marginally significant(p=.052). From the result of early Pe, no burnout group’s amplitude was bigger slightly than that of burnout group. The most obvious electrode was FCz in ERN. The more obvious electrodes were FCz and Cz in early Pe.The aim of study2was to investigate the relationship between burnout and response monitoring. The participants of this study were professional athletes (shooters). This study regarded operational performances (correct rate, reaction time) and ERN as dependent variables, and regarded burnout as independent variable. Twenty participants were separated averagely into two groups. One group was burnout group while the other group was no burnout group. They operated15minute task. From the result of operational performances, no burnout group’s correct rate was better than that of burnout group. From the result of ERN and early Pe, no burnout group’s amplitudes were bigger than those of burnout group, but the differences were not significant. The PES (post-error slowing) phenomenon happened in burnout group. The most obvious electrode was FCz in ERN. The more obvious electrodes were FCz and Cz in early Pe. The main conclusions of this article are as follows:For university students majoring in physical education, Psychological fatigue(mental fatigue and burnout) weakens response monitoring ability. Relaxed music is helpful to mental fatigue recovery. Under burnout circumstances, professional athletes’ response monitoring ability declines. Burnout affects post-error adjustment for professional athletes.