Gender Differences in Throwing Revisited: Sensorimotor Coordination in a Virtual Ball Aiming Task

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Dena CrozierDagmar Sternad

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated that boys throw balls faster, farther and more accurately than girls. This may be largely due to well-known anatomical and muscle-physiological differences that play a central role in overarm throwing. With the objective to understand the potential contribution of the equally essential coordinative aspects in throwing for this gender difference, this large cross-sectional study examined a simplified forearm throw that eliminated the requirements that give males an advantage.While the overall performance error indeed became similar in the age groups younger than 20 years and older than 50 years, it was attenuated for middle-aged individuals. The gender differences remained in individuals who reported no throwing experience, but females with throwing experience reached similar performance as males. Two fine-grained spatiotemporal metrics displayed similar age-dependent gender disparities: while overall, males showed better spatiotemporal coordination of the ball release, age group comparisons specified that it was particularly middle-aged females that made more timing errors and did not develop a noise-tolerant strategy as males did. As throwing experience did not explain this age-dependency, th...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 19, 2020·Scientific Reports·James MathewFrederic R Danion
Nov 5, 2020·Journal of Neurophysiology·Zhaoran Zhang, Dagmar Sternad
Apr 29, 2021·The European Journal of Neuroscience·Leonardo Versaci, Rodrigo Laje

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