SynthesisSports medicine - open2025
Methodological Considerations and Effectiveness for Ecologically Valid Mental Fatigue Inducement in Sports: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Sports medicine - open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Comparing the effect of mental fatigue-inducing models on selected cognitive and technical performance aspects in young soccer players.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Comparing embedded virtual reality combat to traditional warm-ups on fencing performance and fatigue: Protocol for a randomized crossover trial.JSAMS plus · 2026Article
- Decision-making performance and motor skill consistency in basketball short pass-shot sequences under different levels of mental fatigue: an integrated psychophysiological dynamics analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Effects of mental fatigue on basketball-specific decision-making in basketball players of different skill levels: the mediating role of attentional control.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Cognitive Fatigue Disrupts Explosive Performance and Vigilance in Trained Individuals.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Mental fatigue in Olympic combat sports: the unseen ongoing battle.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Effects of mental fatigue on psychophysiological responses, kinematic variables and technical actions in small-sided soccer games: a time course analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMental fatigue (MF) in sports has developed from well-controlled laboratory-based studies to applied studies with greater ecological validity. Ongoing developments in the representativeness of MF inducement approaches, including the broad range of sport-specific motor tasks to simulated real-life scenarios, have shown methodological variability and inconsistent outcomes of effectiveness. Evaluating and comparing these approaches is essential to provide recommendations for designing inducement tasks in future research and considerations for practitioners. Therefore, the systematic review aimed to summarize more ecologically valid MF-inducing tasks in representative sports contexts and to evaluate the MF inducement effectiveness via manipulation check outcomes and potential after effects on subsequent sport-specific performance.
methodsThe review was registered on the PROSPERO database (CRD42024577183). PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus were searched until 21 August 2024 for studies that applied acute, more ecologically valid MF-inducing tasks within sports-specific contexts. The MF inducement task design and effectiveness across representative sports and participants were investigated.
resultsTwelve papers were included. Only a quarter of studies presented an overall low risk of bias. The 20-minute sports-specific motor tasks with cognitive demands and most 30-minute simulated real-life scenarios (i.e., social media use on smartphones, watching tactical videos, sports-themed videogame play) successfully induced MF in differing athlete samples. Ineffective MF inducement was attributed to shorter task duration, passive engagement with sparse cognitive demands, or the involvement of less susceptible participants.
conclusionsThis systematic review evaluated MF inducement methodologies with greater ecological validity to sporting contexts. The inducement effectiveness varied within four task types. Athletes and sports practitioners should carefully manage the modality and content of pre-competition activities to minimize MF. Future research should refine and co-design the MF-inducing task with practitioners based on multifaceted MF evidence from laboratory and real-life settings, create immersive scenarios that can better replicate the inducement process in specific contexts, and improve measurement tools, which will provide comprehensive evaluation and verification of the MF inducement.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.