One of the most formidable tasks for the brain of an athlete during game play is to perceive and integrate complex moving patterns while allocating attentional resources in different key areas of the dynamic scene. The athlete needs to integrate information over variable visual field areas, without attending only to a small area. Furthermore, movements of the players and the object of play, such as a ball or a hockey puck, can be extremely fast and variable. For example, the ball or the hockey puck can abruptly change speed and direction. Trajectory paths of these elements can also be quite unpredictable, with sudden changes in direction and shape, with numerous occlusions and segmentations, such as objects blocking the view of others or disappearing from view. As the level of the sport increases, the rapidity at which these mental tasks must to be performed also increases. Notwithstanding basic physiological capabilities and hard work, the combination of complexity and speed of the perceptual-cognitive processing required by athletes may potentially be one of the main determining factors as to whether athletes will graduate to and function well at superior levels.
In a different field of endeavor, elderly people or persons having suffered from trauma may have cognitive impairments that affect their perceptual-cognitive abilities. Their ability to perform everyday tasks, for example driving a car or walking in a crowd, may suffer from those cognitive impairments.
A method and a device for assessing, training and improving perceptual-cognitive abilities of subjects is described in PCT publication no WO 2010/037222 A1 to Faubert and Tinjust, published on Apr. 8, 2010 (hereinafter “Faubert'2010”), the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The teachings of Faubert'2010 can be applied to athletes as well as to anyone suffering from cognitive impairments.
Faubert'2010 describes a variety of parameters, including a number and speed of targets moving on a display for tracking and identification by a subject under test. Of course, these parameters will vary greatly according to the particulars of the specific subject and according to the subject's rate of progress when undergoing training.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and a method for determining a perceptual-cognitive signature of a subject for optimally setting parameters according to a subject's perceptual-cognitive training needs.