EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball

Thomas Kanatschnig; Norbert Schrapf; Lisa Leitner; Guilherme Wood; Christof Körner; Markus Tilp; Silvia Erika Kober

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0318234

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 9, 2024
9 Aug 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318234.r001
10 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Dragan Hrncic, Editor PONE-D-24-33452EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyballPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kanatschnig, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please do follow the instructions of our expert reviewers to improve you manuscript. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 24 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This study (EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball) examined how expertise in volleyball affects brain activity during sport-related decision-making. Participants with different levels of experience (three groups) were asked to predict the outcome of volleyball plays. Researchers measured theta and alpha waves, to assess neural efficiency. The results showed that more experienced players were better at making accurate predictions. Both experienced and less experienced players showed increased brain activity during the task, but there were no significant differences between groups. While these findings suggest that expertise is linked to improved performance, the relationship between expertise and brain efficiency in this specific context is more nuanced than the neural efficiency hypothesis might predict. Introduction: The research question is clear and relevant. The authors have effectively outlined the theoretical framework, particularly the neural efficiency hypothesis, and its application to the domain of sport. Minor comment is that in Page 5, line 76, when starting to argument the relationship between theta and alpha power changes and their association with task performance, it would be beneficial to provide a clearer and more detailed explanation, especially for readers who may not be experts in the EEG field. Method: The researchers have employed a rigorous and appropriate research design to address the research question. The statistical analyses are robust and the data analysis is well-conducted. Results: The results are clearly presented. Minor comment: to further strengthen the interpretation of the results, it would be beneficial to visualize the time-course of theta and alpha power changes using Time-Frequency Representations. This would provide a more detailed understanding of the dynamic changes in brain activity during the task. Discussion: The discussion is well-argued but the writing style could be improved by using clearer language and avoiding overly complex terminology. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammad Ali Nazari ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review- PONE-D-24-33452.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318234.r002
Revision 1
7 Jan 2025 Author Response Response to Reviewers Concerning the revision of the manuscript EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball (PONE-D-24-33452) Dear reviewers, Dear editors of PLOS ONE, In the name of all my co-authors, I would like to thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback for our manuscript. We hereby present to you our responses to all points raised during your reviews and the subsequent changes we made to the manuscript. Kind regards, Thomas Kanatschnig ________________________________________ Journal Requirements When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf PLOS ONE's style requirements were adopted. 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. This work was financed in its entirety by the University of Graz. Therefore, there is no specific funding information to be provided for this work, as no grant has been awarded for it. We would kindly ask to please let the statement: “The authors acknowledge the financial support by the University of Graz.” to be printed in the funding section when this article is accepted for publication. 3. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. The supporting file “S1 File” was given the more descriptive name “S1_Tables” and any in-text citations were matched accordingly. File title and legend were kept as previously provided. The file was converted to PDF. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. A search for potential retractions in our reference list using the “Retraction Watch Database” did not yield any results. Reviewer 1 This study (EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball) examined how expertise in volleyball affects brain activity during sport-related decision-making. Participants with different levels of experience (three groups) were asked to predict the outcome of volleyball plays. Researchers measured theta and alpha waves, to assess neural efficiency. The results showed that more experienced players were better at making accurate predictions. Both experienced and less experienced players showed increased brain activity during the task, but there were no significant differences between groups. While these findings suggest that expertise is linked to improved performance, the relationship between expertise and brain efficiency in this specific context is more nuanced than the neural efficiency hypothesis might predict. We would like to thank you for your very constructive feedback on our manuscript. In the following we provide our responses to your comments. Introduction: The research question is clear and relevant. The authors have effectively outlined the theoretical framework, particularly the neural efficiency hypothesis, and its application to the domain of sport. Minor comment is that in Page 5, line 76, when starting to argument the relationship between theta and alpha power changes and their association with task performance, it would be beneficial to provide a clearer and more detailed explanation, especially for readers who may not be experts in the EEG field. We expanded the section concerning the relationship between theta/alpha power and task performance with the aim of making it better comprehensible for readers with less expertise in EEG. Thank you for making us aware of this aspect. Method: The researchers have employed a rigorous and appropriate research design to address the research question. The statistical analyses are robust and the data analysis is well-conducted. Thank you very much for your favorable judgement of our methodology. Results: The results are clearly presented. Minor comment: to further strengthen the interpretation of the results, it would be beneficial to visualize the time-course of theta and alpha power changes using Time-Frequency Representations. This would provide a more detailed understanding of the dynamic changes in brain activity during the task. We greatly appreciate your suggestion concerning the integration of time-frequency representations. Following your advice, we conducted wavelet analyses on the EEG time courses to investigate temporal dynamics underlying our tactical decision-making task. We compared time-frequency patterns between expertise groups (i.e., Novice vs. Amateur vs. Expert) as well as between electrode positions representing our regions of interest (i.e., FCz vs. Pz). While the time-frequency patterns resulting from our analyses show general differences in the distribution of theta and alpha activity between frontal and parietal areas, the groups largely did not differ from each other visually. Also, we could not identify patterns which could meaningfully explain temporal dynamics of task-related theta/alpha activity in the time interval of interest (i.e., -3 until 0.5 s respective to video end). This is why we decided not to include visualizations of this kind in our manuscript, as we thought visual differences between groups were too small to provide meaningful additional information. Discussion: The discussion is well-argued but the writing style could be improved by using clearer language and avoiding overly complex terminology. Thank you for your thoughtful advice. Accordingly, we made changes to the manuscript with the aim of improving understandability and simplifying the wording. Additional Changes • Headings were reformatted following the PLOS ONE formatting guidelines. • Minor formatting changes were performed to figures 1-6. • Minor formatting changes were performed to table descriptions. • Minor general changes concerning grammar and formatting were performed to the main text. • The sections “Data availability”, “Author contributions” and “Competing interests” were removed from the main text. • The description of the Amateur group under the “Participants” section was refined. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318234.r003
14 Jan 2025 Decision Letter - Dragan Hrncic, Editor EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball PONE-D-24-33452R1 Dear Dr. Kanatschnig, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Prof. Dr. Dragan Hrncic, MD, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I re-reviewed the revised manuscript and found that the authors have adequately addressed all of my previous comments. I have no further concerns. I recommend the acceptance of the manuscript for publication in PLOS ONE. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammad Ali Nazari ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318234.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Dragan Hrncic, Editor PONE-D-24-33452R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kanatschnig, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Dragan Hrncic Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318234.r005

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