During aiming, expert archers activate different brain areas from beginners

2 studies · 56 archers measured

Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

Two Korean MRI studies, both of simulated aiming in front of a projected target with no bow in hand, find that experts and beginners do not switch on the same areas. In the first, from 2008, eight world-class archers mainly use occipital and temporal visual areas and eight beginners with a month of archery use frontal areas and the posterior cingulate; in the last three seconds before release the experts switch on the right anterior cingulate, which the authors read as focused attention, and which does not appear over the full six seconds of aiming. In the second, from 2014, twelve medallists from the Olympics, Asian Games and World Championships, fourteen university archers and fourteen people who had never shot again have different maps, and again those who do not shoot rely more on frontal areas. The common ground stops there: the areas typical of the experts do not match between the two studies, the first uses a statistical threshold not corrected for multiple comparisons on groups of eight, and in the second the "beginners" had never shot. That the brain of someone who has aimed for years works differently has two small studies behind it; which areas actually matter is not yet known.

Also phrased as: "the archer's brain at aim"; "experts do not think at aim"; "concentration before the release"; "expert and beginner brains"

In practice

It is said that an expert at aim "does not think" and lets the eyes do the work, while a beginner reasons through every step, and that real concentration arrives in the last seconds before the release.

Evidence

2008
For Archers Published later

8 expert Korean archers (4 men and 4 women, aged 23.6, 11.5 years of shooting, over 330 out of 360 at 70 metres) and 8 beginners (6 men and 2 women, aged 28.6, one month of archery) aim at a simulated target for 6 seconds inside an MRI scanner: in the experts mainly the middle occipital gyrus and the superior and middle temporal gyri switch on, in the beginners the posterior cingulate and the inferior and medial frontal gyri; outside the regions of interest the experts also activate frontal areas and the caudate nucleus. Threshold p < 0.01 not corrected for multiple comparisons, with a minimum extent of 50 voxels.

Neural correlates of pre-performance routines in expert and novice archers · Jingu Kim, Hyoung Mo Lee, Woo Jong Kim, Hye Ju Park, Sung Woon Kim, Doo Hwan Moon, Minjung Woo, Leo Keith Tennant
2008
For Archers Published later

In the same study, in the last 3 seconds before the release the experts activate the right anterior cingulate, the middle occipital gyrus, the left fusiform gyrus and the superior and middle temporal gyri more than the beginners (p < 0.01 uncorrected), while the beginners activate the superior, inferior and medial frontal gyri, the precuneus and the middle temporal gyrus more.

Neural correlates of pre-performance routines in expert and novice archers · Jingu Kim, Hyoung Mo Lee, Woo Jong Kim, Hye Ju Park, Sung Woon Kim, Doo Hwan Moon, Minjung Woo, Leo Keith Tennant
2008
Context Archers Published later

In the experts the anterior cingulate switches on only in the window of the last 3 seconds and not over the whole 6-second aim: the authors read it as attention narrowing just before the release, but it is a finding on eight people at an uncorrected threshold.

Neural correlates of pre-performance routines in expert and novice archers · Jingu Kim, Hyoung Mo Lee, Woo Jong Kim, Hye Ju Park, Sung Woon Kim, Doo Hwan Moon, Minjung Woo, Leo Keith Tennant
2014
For Archers Published later

12 women medallists (aged 33.5, 17.8 years of shooting), 14 university archers (aged 22.9, 11.9 years of shooting) and 14 people who had never shot, in front of a simulated target at 70 metres, imagine the shot and press a button at the moment of release: the medallists are more active than the others in the right supplementary motor area, the middle frontal cortex, the temporoparietal areas and the cerebellum, the university archers only in the right temporoparietal and somatosensory areas, the non-archers in the superior and inferior frontal gyri, the ventral prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, with a correction for multiple comparisons. The result does not change after allowing for age and sex.

An fMRI Study of Differences in Brain Activity Among Elite, Expert, and Novice Archers at the Moment of Optimal Aiming · Woojong Kim, Yongmin Chang, Jingu Kim, Jeehye Seo, Kwangmin Ryu, Eunkyung Lee, Minjung Woo, Christopher M. Janelle

Status history

1990 Not studied In the registry's bibliography nobody has yet compared the brains of experts and beginners during aiming: the difference between those who "think" and those who let go is talked about, but it has not been measured.
2008 Reported Eight expert Korean archers, with eleven and a half years of practice, and eight beginners with a month of archery aim at a simulated target for six seconds inside an MRI scanner, pressing a button when they feel ready to release. In the experts mainly occipital and temporal areas switch on, in the beginners frontal areas and the posterior cingulate, although the experts also show some frontal activity. In the last three seconds the experts activate the right anterior cingulate and visual and temporal areas more than the beginners, and that anterior cingulate appears only in the short window, not over the whole aim. Eight people per group, groups that differ in age and sex, and a statistical threshold not corrected for multiple comparisons: reported, only just.
2014 Reported A second Korean study, with twelve women medallists from the Olympics, Asian Games and World Championships, fourteen university archers and fourteen people who had never shot, looks at the instant when each of them, in front of a simulated target at 70 metres, imagines releasing. The three maps differ, this time with a correction for multiple comparisons: the medallists are more active in the supplementary motor area, the middle frontal cortex, the temporoparietal areas and the cerebellum, the university archers in the right temporoparietal and somatosensory areas, the non-archers in frontal areas, the posterior cingulate and the basal ganglia. The finding of frontal activity in those who cannot shoot is repeated, the one of visual areas in the experts is not, and the comparison group is made not of beginners but of people who had never shot. Two studies point the same way, but they are cross-sectional comparisons between groups, small, from the same research setting and at odds over which areas matter: rising to corroborated would take better studies, and the status stays reported.

Research lines

30 studiesThe archer's brain: EEG, evoked potentials, fMRI and fNIRS

Cite

APA

Campagna, M. (2026). During aiming, expert archers activate different brain areas from beginners (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/aiming-brain-experts-beginners

BibTeX

@misc{campagna2026_miracervelloespertiprincipianti,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {During aiming, expert archers activate different brain areas from beginners},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/aiming-brain-experts-beginners},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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