Mind the Game: Virtual Reality-Based Cognitive Training to Enhance Decision-Making in Football Athletes

Introduction

Athletes are frequently recognised for their physical abilities; however, their perceptual-cognitive skills are equally essential for achieving optimal performance. Modern sports science emphasises the assessment and training of these skills, aiming not only to monitor athlete development but also to support talent identification, facilitate return to play, and enhance competitive outcomes. In this context, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising tool, offering the possibility of recreating and manipulating complex sporting scenarios in controlled yet realistic environments. ¹ It allows for repeated practice and, since it does not involve physical exertion, serves as a valuable training option for injured athletes. However, despite its potential, evidence regarding the effectiveness of VR-based interventions for improving perceptual-cognitive skills remains limited.

This article presents the Mind the Game project, which aims to advance the current understanding of VR-based cognitive interventions in sports. The study specifically examines the effects of such training on decision-making accuracy. It further explores whether improvements extend to the underlying cognitive functions, thereby indicating potential far-transfer effects.

Perceptual-Cognitive Skills in Sport

Perceptual-cognitive skills are defined as the ability to perceive sensory information in the environment and to process, interpret, and integrate it using higher-order cognitive functions. ² These skills range from fundamental visual abilities, such as peripheral vision, to more advanced cognitive functions, including selective attention and decision-making. Athletes use their perceptual-cognitive skills to classify environmental information and allocate their attention. This enables them to detect and discriminate between relevant and irrelevant stimuli, as well as to identify and recognize patterns or targets. Moreover, these skills involve integrating sensory information with prior knowledge to inform actions. For example, in football, players use perceptual-cognitive skills to read the game, scanning the field to track their teammates and opponents. They anticipate actions, and quickly decide whether to pass, dribble, or shoot, often suppressing impulsive choices in favor of effective team play. They also need to manage additional information, such as the current score or the remaining match time, to guide their decisions. Among all perceptual-cognitive skills, decision-making is the most extensively studied. ³ It is defined as the ability to identify and evaluate available options in order to select the most effective course of action in a given situation. ⁴ Decision-making relies on core executive functions, such as cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory, and can determine success or failure in team sports. Recently, VR has emerged as a promising tool for simulating sports scenarios and competitive pressure, thus providing athletes with a valuable option to train their perceptual-cognitive skills. ⁵

Embodied Experience and the Role of VR

VR technology offers transformative potential for sports training through embodied simulations. By immersing athletes in sensorimotor environments, it engages their perceptual, proprioceptive, and affective systems, fostering a strong sense of presence and realism. ⁶ When an action is simulated from a first-person perspective, athletes see themselves performing it. This process activates neural pathways that closely overlap with those engaged during actual execution, thereby reinforcing motor learning and skill retention. ⁷ Furthermore, it aligns with the principles of embodied cognition, which suggest that learning is grounded in the body’s interaction with the environment. ⁸ In addition, VR mimics real-world competition and enables repeated practice in well-controlled conditions. As “practice makes perfect,” VR shows promise for off-field perceptual-cognitive training in sports. However, as a relatively new technology, ongoing research is still evaluating its effectiveness across different skills and sports. Moreover, research is still addressing the issue of cybersickness that users may experience.

Mind the Game: The Project

Building on the principles outlined above, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, in collaboration with the Università degli Studi di Milano, is leading the Mind the Game research project, which aims to investigate the effectiveness of VR as a cognitive training tool in football. Specifically, the project aims to assess the impact of VR-based cognitive training on decision-making accuracy. Moreover, it explores potential far-transfer effects on processing speed, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, supporting effective decision-making.

VR-Based Cognitive Training Protocol

The study employs a within-subjects design, in which participants serve as their own control, allowing direct comparisons between pre- and post-training performance.

Real-world videos are recorded using a GoPro Max in HERO mode to minimize cybersickness caused by the players’ movements. These videos feature a variety of football actions conceptualised by a team of expert coaches. They cover seven main areas of football technique, including passing, dribbling and shooting. The videos are captured from a first-person perspective and presented to participants via a Meta Quest headset. A total of 55 videos are recorded, of which 35 are used for training. Footballers take part in 12 training sessions, three times a week for 4 weeks. Each session consists of 15 videos, each lasting ∼10 seconds. Training videos begin with a familiarisation phase, allowing participants to explore the environment. The videos then play up to a decision point and pause, prompting participants to verbalize their intended course of action. The videos subsequently resume to show the optimal response, providing players with immediate feedback on the correct action. The cognitive training is progressive: during the first week, athletes are given 3 seconds to make a decision. Over the course of the training, this time gradually decreases until athletes are trained to respond within 1.5 seconds.

Concerning testing, 20 unique videos are used for pre- and post-assessment. Similar to the training sessions, videos pause at critical decision points; however, no feedback is provided. Participants are required to verbally respond within 1.5 seconds, with decision-making accuracy as the primary outcome measure. A scoring system is used to evaluate responses classified by experts as optimal (2 points), acceptable (1 point), or null (0 points). In addition to video-based assessment, participants complete computerised neuropsychological tests from the Vienna Test System. In particular, the Trail Making Test (TMT) and Go/no-go are implemented to explore potential changes in information processing speed, cognitive flexibility, and response inhibition. At post-test, questionnaires are administered to evaluate the enjoyment of the training, using a 10-point analogue scale; the sense of embodiment, using the Virtual Embodiment Questionnaire (VEQ); the sense of presence, using the Slater-Usoh-Steed (SUS) questionnaire; and the perceived usefulness and ease of use of VR technology, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire.

Practical Implications of the Project

Understanding the effectiveness of VR-based cognitive training in football can have practical implications for sports performance and athlete development. Key applications include: 1.

Enhancement of in-game decision-making: VR scenarios allow players to practice rapid and accurate responses in realistic situations, thereby enhancing their tactical decision-making and on-field performance;

This approach is part of a comprehensive vision of athlete development that goes beyond traditional physical training, using VR technology as an innovative tool to enhance perceptual-cognitive skills.

Conclusions

The Mind the Game project investigates the potential of VR as a tool for enhancing perceptual-cognitive skills in sports, with a particular focus on its effectiveness in improving decision-making accuracy among footballers. In addition to sport-specific outcomes, the study explores whether VR-based training can promote broader cognitive benefits, including faster processing speed, greater cognitive flexibility, and stronger inhibitory control. By providing immersive, safe, and repeatable scenarios, VR can support cognitive enhancement, assessment and return-to-play protocols, underscoring its critical role in modern sports science.

Emiliano Cè, full professor of Sport Science and President of the Managing Committee School of Exercise and Sport Sciences at the Università degli Studi di Milano, has shared about the project: “The “Mind the Game” project addresses a topic with potentially significant implications for both athlete training and return-to-play processes. From a training perspective, the project fits perfectly within a recently emerging paradigm that emphasizes learning technical skills within a game-specific context rather than isolating them from gameplay. This approach enables athletes to develop and refine their technical abilities while simultaneously accounting for the external variables and situational demands that characterize real competitive scenarios. The introduction of VR could further enhance this process by allowing athletes to fine-tune their technical execution and responsiveness within controlled yet realistic environments. From a return-to-play standpoint, using VR to stimulate cognitive and decision-making components may represent a valuable tool to support the athlete’s comprehensive recovery. Beyond physical rehabilitation, it could help restore sport-specific reaction speed and anticipatory skills, capacities often inhibited during rehabilitation, which might benefit greatly from VR-based training even when full mobility has not yet been regained.”