To explore cognitive factors contributing to concussive impacts in athletes. 

Cognitive training programs are becoming an increasingly popular strategy for improving athletic performance.  Such programs may have potential to decrease athletes’ concussion risk by improving athletes’ ability to avoid and appropriately react to imminent impacts in the athletic environment.  Understanding what cognitive factors contribute to concussive impacts may provide insight into the most appropriate cognitive training regimens for concussion risk reduction. 

YouTube videos depicting 100 concussive impacts in athletes were identified via Google video search.  Two reviewers independently classified the primary cognitive factor contributing to each impact as one of the following: useful field of view (UFOV, unanticipated/unrecognized impacts coming from outside the athlete’s field of view), field dependence (FD, unanticipated/unrecognized impacts resulting from the athlete’s attention being so focused on an athletic task that the pending impact was not recognized), processing speed (PS, anticipated/recognized impacts occurring too quickly for the athlete to complete an evasive or protective maneuver), or motion perception (MP, anticipated/recognized impacts occurring with sufficient time to respond but associated with a poorly planned or implemented motor response).  Descriptive statistics were calculated. 

98 videos were reviewed to yield 100 concussive impacts.  98% of the concussed athletes were males.  Concussions occurred during American football (53%), ice hockey (29%), soccer (3%), basketball (3%), as well as 9 other sports (12%).  The most commonly contributing cognitive factor was MP (32%), followed by FD (30%), UFOV (23%), and PS (15%). 

Multiple cognitive factors contribute to concussive impacts in athletes, with MP and FD being the most common in our sample.  Cognitive training programs intending to reduce concussion risk in athletes should not focus only on one cognitive factor.  Future work should also explore differences between sports and positions.