Effects of Acute Fatigue on Cognitive Performance in Team Sport Players: Does It Change the Way They Perform? A Scoping Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper discusses an important and rarely addressed issue in sport regarding the effects of fatigue on cognitive function.

However, I have several comments:

1) I propose to specify in the title that the paper is an review of the research

 

2) In the "Methods" section, the indicators in the first column from the right of Table 1 should be described in detail. Where these indicators were collected from and why exactly such indicators were included for the selected studies.

Moreover, in some cases percentage changes are given in Table 1, while in other cases they are not, which should also be justified.

 

3) In the "Results" section, the description of individual studies sometimes indicated changes in the analysed variables, while Table 1 shows that they did not reach the assumed statistical significance. A non-significant result indicates that it is not known whether a change exists. If the difference does not achieve statistical significance, the 'effect size' value may not be reliable . For example, in item no. 32 most of the changes did not reach statistical significance. It is therefore not appropriate to indicate changes in such cases.  In some cases, non-significant changes may be due to small sample sizes (insufficient power of statistical test)

 

In addition, it appears from the abstract of paper 32 that the sample size in the presented study was not 42 as stated in the review. Please check the information given in the papers in detail.

 

4) Limitations of studies should be added, e.g. heterogeneity of selected studies, small sample sizes in some studies, etc.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your sincere review of our article. We updated our study based on your comments as follows:

1. We changed the article to specify that it is a review.
2. In methods section we added explanation for indicators selection. Percentages in Table 1 wasn’t shown because of their unavailability of data in reviewed study (added in methods section as well).
3. We changed a few statements in results section. We really appreciate your detailed observation as changes of some statements was necessary to consider and change. Additionally, sample size of item 32 was corrected.
4. Limitations accented.

One more time, thank you for your critical and rational viewpoint on our study.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

General Comments:

Thank you for the opportunity to review this scoping review which is very well written and provides an interesting summation of the influences on cognitive functioning in team sport athletes. I believe the manuscript would be an insightful addition to mental fatigue and team sport literature. I do, however, I believe a few presentation errors exists within the manuscript and therefore would like to provide a few suggestions for your consideration, more specifically:

 

Specific Comments:

ABSTRACT

Succinct and summarises the manuscript well.

• Line 5: remove yahoo email from affiliation
• Line 12: Should “alternation” be “alteration”? Similarly for lines 72, 147, 177, 195, 205, 235 and 250. Otherwise, alternation between what?

 

INTRODUCTION

Well written and establishes the need for the review quite well.

• Line 50: suggest “…cognitive abilities such as…”. Similarly for line 75.
• Line 84: “extend” should be “extent”.

 

METHODS

Clear, concise and easy to follow.

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Well written for the most part, a few summative sentences are suggested to tidy up incomplete discussions.

• Line 136: RSA abbreviation not defined.
• Lines135-139: replace full stop with superscript ordinals or words for ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’ etc.
• Replace “*” and “**” etc with actual p-values throughout results and discussion.
• Line 147: Suggest a summative sentence needed to conclude this section.
• Line 157: Suggest a summative sentence needed to conclude this section.

 

CONCLUSIONS

Well written and a good summation of the findings.

 

TABLES AND FIGURES

Clear and concise, well presented Tables and Figures.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your sincere review of our article. We updated our study based on your comments as follows:

INTRODUCTION

• Cognitive abilities such es… added in line 51

R and D

• RSA abbreviation defined (line 153)
• All full stops replaced by Superscript ordinals 
• Summative sentences concluded (line 160-165 and 170-172)

GRAMMATICAL 

1. Alternation - Alteration (all lines)
2. Extend - Extent (line 97)

LIMITATION: p values cannot be found in some cases, therefore we chose to use level of significance in methods as well as in results and discussion section. We consider this approach to be clear and easy to follow by readers.

One more time, thank you for your critical and rational viewpoint on our study. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

You should improve the manuscript. Please, see the suggestions provided

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your sincere review of our article. We updated our study based on your comments as follows:

INTRODUCTION

First part of introduction was rewritten to accent cognition over agility. We wanted to continually unfold cognitive aspect of performance over agility which also includes this aspect in team sports. Consequently, we uncover fatigue in relation to physical activity and its basic mechanisms.

Additionally we included brief introduction to mental fatigue and its implication to sport performance.

R and D

• We tried to correlate authors findings and clarify recent knowledge. 
• Section 3.2 renamed to enhance understanding between 3.1 and 3.2.  
• Mental fatigue inducement as well as exercise inducement used in reviewed studies are explained in first paragraph of each section

Q: Is technical abilities negatively influence by fatigue ?

A: Some studies suggests that fatigue influence technical performance in tasks that are cognitively demanding. Further research, especially in fields different from soccer is necessary.

Additionally, we suggest that technical and tactical abilities engaged in complex tasks (e.g., decision-making aspect included in some of passing tests) should be considered as cognitively demanding tasks. Selection criteria are stated in Methods section, lines 109-111.

Practical applications are stated in section Conclusions.

MINOR REMARKS

• Word “Alternation” corrected to “Alteration”
• In Abstract, Methods explained to better extent
• Authors names included despite the rules of the journal

We are sincerely thankful for your open criticism on introduction part as we acknowledge that it should be focused more on the main topic of our research. Our manuscript has improved because of your detailed and professional review. 

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

I would like to congratualte to a well written and interesting paper. I just have one minor suggestion - to use 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th set instead of using 1., 2.,3., 4. and 5. set in your manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are thankful for your sincere review of our article. 

Our updated version, besides other improvements, include a numeric changes you propose.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made appropriate corrections, which significantly improves the quality of the work. I only ask to include in the legend of Table 1 descriptions for letters a,b,c,d,e from the last column (similary as added in the description of the method).

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we added description to the legend of Table 1. 

Thank you for your remark.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf