The present results show a clear distinction between the level of athletic performance and corresponding fundamental mental capacities for learning an abstract and demanding dynamic scene task. How would this exceptional ability translate to specific real-life situations? For athletes, it is obviously related to their high levels of competitive sport performance. But what actions can we predict are enhanced by such a specialised ability for learning dynamic complex scenes? It would make logical sense that high-level athletes should be superior for achieving biological motion perception skills for instance. This is supported by the fact that cortical thickness of STS, an area known to process socially relevant cues and biological motion perception5, is greater and linked to training experience in athletes4. In other populations such as healthy older observers it has been shown that training with the 3D-MOT results in a direct subsequent transfer benefit to biological motion perception abilities at distances critical for collision avoidance14. The 3D-MOT speed task strongly engages several attention and mental skills that should carry over to other functions. To achieve high levels on this task one requires exquisite selective, dynamic, distributed and sustained attention skills for brief yet intense periods. Such abilities are certainly necessary when engaged in activities requiring the integration of simultaneous inputs such as when driving, crossing busy streets or when engaged in sporting activities. We have previously shown that the condition of testing can influence the learning curve3. This was demonstrated by the fact that if the professional players were standing as opposed sitting down for the initial consolidation training, the growth curve was reduced, which argues for shared resources. It remains to be determined whether this is specific to professional athletes or whether it can also be observed in other populations, as there clearly is something special about professional athletes. They appear to be able to hyper-focus for short periods of time resulting in extraordinary learning functions for the 3D-MOT task. We cannot determine here whether this superb ability to learn to process random and complex dynamic scenes has evolved by experience or stems from an innate predisposition. Prospective outcomes of athlete performance based on initial measures should prove very interesting in the future. The 3D-MOT method has been used to profile athletes for both the NHL and NFL combines where the best prospects for the entry draft are evaluated on a series of test batteries. It will be interesting to see whether these initial scores predict future performance outcomes. It is clear that individual performances on this task will be affected by many factors other than athletic skill including, sensory, physical and psychological makeup so we should not expect a direct one to one relationship. It is clear that individual performances on this task will be affected by many factors other than athletic skill including, sensory, physical and psychological makeup so we should not expect a direct one to one relationship. Nevertheless, our results do suggest that rapid learning in complex and unpredictable dynamic contexts is one of the critical components for elite performance.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that professional athletes as a group have extraordinary skills for rapidly learning unpredictable, complex dynamic visual scenes that are void of any specific context. It is clear from these results that these remarkable mental processing and learning abilities should be acknowledged as critical elements for world-class performance in sport and potentially elite performance abilities in other dynamic contexts.