(1.School of Physical Education，Northeast Normal University，Changchun 130024，China； 2.School of Physical Education，Inner Mongolia Minzu University，Tongliao 028000，China； 3.Shenzhen Oriental English College，Shenzhen 518128，China； 4. School of Physical Education，Shaanxi Normal University，Xi'an 710119，China) Abstract: Starting from the professional mental rotation of athletes with different sports experience, explore the behavioral performance and brain processing characteristics of athletes' mental rotation under different task load conditions, and to provide a theoretical basis for further understanding of the athlete's spatial cognitive processing mechanism and scientific training. Adopting a two-factor mixed experimental design 2 (Level：expert, novice) ×2 (Map difficulty: Simple, complex), and using functional near-infrared spectroscopy imaging technology to comparing athletes' correct rate, reaction time, changes of the Oxy-Hb concentration in the DLPFC and VLPFC in mental rotation tasks under different task difficulty conditions for 27 experts and novices. Results show that：(1) As the difficulty increases, the accuracy rate is significantly reduced, and the reaction time is significantly longer, and the experts is better than the novices; (2)under complex map conditions, the Oxy-Hb concentration in the four brain regions of the left and right dorsal and ventrolateral prefrontal lobes are significantly higher than simple map conditions. The Oxy-Hb concentration in the four brain regions of the left and right dorsal and ventrolateral prefrontal lobes of expert athletes is significantly lower than novices. Conclusion reveals that：Expert athletes showed higher task performance than novice athletes in completing mental rotation tasks of map reading, and Oxy-Hb activation was lower than that of novice athletes, showing certain specific cognitive advantages. The cognitive process of mental rotation is restricted by cognitive load. Different cognitive load conditions have different performance effects and brain activation changes on mental rotation processing of orienteering athletes. Keywords: mental rotation ability；map difficulty；brain processing；orienteering；functional near infrared spectroscopy technology |
