Matteo Campagna
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The brain's electrical activity during the aim differs before the best arrows

12 studies · 156 archers measured

ForContextAgainst199019952000200520102015202020252023, context, n = 301990, for, n = 282022, context, n = 282025, context, n = 262026, context, n = 122010, against, n = 102015, for, n = 82015, against, n = 82019, context, n = 52023, for, n = 52019, context, n = 42005, for2024, context
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.

The question has to be asked arrow by arrow: within the same archer, does the brain work differently before a ten and before a seven? Comparisons made this way are few, and they do not point the same way. The largest, on twenty-eight elite archers in 1990, finds differences only in the left hemisphere, with more power at 6, 12 and 28 Hz in the last second before the worst arrows; a 2010 abstract on ten pre-elite archers looks specifically at left temporal and occipital alpha over the two seconds before release and finds it no different between the best and the worst arrows. The other two comparisons use single-channel consumer headbands and pool the arrows of different archers, so they mix differences between arrows with differences between people: in eight Croatian archers the indices change before the tens in compound but not in recurve, and in five young Turkish archers the arrows shot with higher attention and calm indices score more (r = 0.34 and 0.39). Even where a difference appears, its direction changes: in compound the calm index is lower before the tens, in the Turkish youngsters it is higher. Two other arrow-by-arrow comparisons appear in venues the registry marks as questionable, and the studies that compare archers with each other answer a different question, who shoots better rather than what comes before the good arrow. A 2024 review of the precision sports reaches a similar reading: only the sensorimotor rhythm shows a consistent link with performance, while left temporal alpha and frontal theta and alpha give results that do not repeat from one study to the next.

Also phrased as: "brainwaves and score"; "eeg while aiming"; "brain activity before the release"; "the brain before a ten"; "alpha waves in archery"

In practice

It is said that the head goes quiet before a good shot, and that when the arrow finds the centre the archer's brain was working more calmly during the aim.

Evidence

  • 1990
    For Archers Published later

    28 right-handed elite archers, 16 shots at 45 m, EEG over the left and right temples: comparing each archer's four best and four worst arrows over the last second before release, the right hemisphere shows no difference in any of the thirteen bands, the left does, with more power before the worst arrows at 6 Hz (F = 15.08), 12 Hz (F = 8.19) and 28 Hz (F = 5.52), all reported as significant. Only two electrodes and eight arrows per archer; the authors themselves warn that the number of tests run raises the risk of chance findings.

    Hemispheric Asymmetry, Cardiac Response, and Performance in Elite Archers · Walter Salazar, Daniel M. Landers, Steven J. Petruzzello, Myungwoo Han, Debra J. Crews, Karla A. Kubitz

  • 2005
    For Review Published later

    A review chapter on the psychological side of archery: in the shooting sports a rise in alpha (8 to 13 Hz) over the left temporal region before the release goes with both experience and better scores, but too much alpha goes with the worst shots and with those the shooter abandons. It draws on other authors' studies of archers and of pistol and rifle shooters, without giving their numbers.

    Psychological Aspects of Archery · Kathleen M. Haywood

  • 2010
    Against Archers Published later

    10 pre-elite Taiwanese archers aged 19.8, 36 arrows each: for each archer the 10 best arrows (9.48 on average) and the 10 worst (7.16) are compared on the EEG of the 2 seconds before release, in half-second windows. Low (8-10 Hz) and high (10-12 Hz) alpha power at T3 and Oz does not separate the best arrows from the worst, neither as a main effect nor as an interaction, against the authors' hypothesis. A conference abstract, with no F or p values, and with only two bands at two electrodes.

    Pre-shot EEG alpha-power during archery shooting · I-Ting Chen, Tsung-Ming Hung

  • 2015
    For Archers Published later

    8 experienced Croatian archers, 4 compound and 4 recurve, 15 arrows at 18 m with a single-channel consumer EEG headband on the forehead (Mindwave Mobile, Fp1 electrode) and its attention and meditation indices, read two seconds and one second before the release, at the release and one second after. In compound the arrows differ: two seconds before the release the meditation index is 43.00 before the tens against 63.75 before the eights and 56.52 before the nines (p = 0.015 and 0.005), and the attention index is higher on the eights from two seconds before the release (84.00 against 58.48 on the nines and 52.71 on the tens), although the compound eights are only four arrows. The direction, then, is a less calm head before the tens, not a calmer one. The arrows of the four archers are analysed together, so the comparison mixes arrows with archers; in the table the meditation values for the tens repeat in pairs, which suggests a typesetting error. A regional journal.

    Heart rate values and levels of attention and relaxation in expert archers during shooting · Andrea Vrbik, Raphael Bene, Ivan Vrbik

  • 2015
    Against Archers Published later

    In the same study the four recurve archers go the other way: the attention index does not change between arrows scoring eight, nine and ten at any of the four moments, and the meditation index separates only one second after the shot (43.00 on the tens against 52.50 on the eights and 58.69 on the nines), when the arrow has already gone. During the aim, no difference.

    Heart rate values and levels of attention and relaxation in expert archers during shooting · Andrea Vrbik, Raphael Bene, Ivan Vrbik

  • 2019
    Context Archers Published later

    5 highly qualified Russian archers, 60 arrows each, telemetric EEG over 19 leads during the aim, tens compared with arrows scoring 7 and 8. In the group maps the tens are preceded by more theta activity (4 to 8 Hz) over the central part of the frontal lobes and the lateral visual area; before the poor arrows that increase is missing and the fast activity (12 to 35 Hz) spreads over both hemispheres, although the text calls it not substantially different from that of the tens, while the conclusion blames it for the loss of accuracy. In the two archers with the fewest poor arrows, 4 and 6 out of 60, the activity before a poor arrow does not differ from that before a ten. No numerical values or statistics are reported, and these are conference proceedings in a venue marked as questionable: under the registry's rules it is context and does not decide the status.

    BIOLOGICAL MARKERS OF GOAL-DIRECTED MOVEMENTS OF VARYING PRECISION AND STABILITY ON THE EXAMPLE OF ARCHERY OF HIGHLY-SKILLED ATHLETES Questionable venue · A.B. Trembach, O.I. Shestakov, E.R. Minikhanova

  • 2019
    Context Archers Published later

    4 masters of sport from Krasnodar, 60 arrows each, with 31, 28, 27 and 17 tens. It compares archers with each other, not arrows: those who shoot more tens have less power in the 4 to 12 Hz bands during the aim and more synchronisation between the frontal areas (Fp1 with F7, F3 and Fz), which falls with the ranking together with that between the occipital and parietal areas and between the central, frontal and parietal areas; the bands above 12 Hz do not change. Differences declared significant without values, in a congress abstract. It says something about the more accurate archers, not about what happens before the single good arrow.

    Electrophysiological correlates of goal-directed movements depending on their accuracy and stability at the archery example · Alexander Trembach, Oleg Shestakov, Tatiana Ponomareva, Ekaterina Minikhanova

  • 2022
    Context Archers Published later

    14 Chinese national team archers and 14 from a provincial team, 30-channel EEG over the last second of the aim, 30 arrows each, brain network analysis. Each archer's average score is linked to no global measure of the network, only to local measures of single nodes; in the national team archers some beta connections between the front and the back of the head (Fpz-O1 and Fp1-Oz in beta2, F3-P4, FC5-Oz and Cz-CP6 in beta1; p < 0.01) go with higher scores. It is a comparison between archers, not between arrows from the same archer.

    From Expert to Elite? Research on Top Archer's EEG Network Topology · Feng Gu, Anmin Gong, Yi Qu, Aiyong Bao, Jin Wu, Changhao Jiang, Yunfa Fu

  • 2023
    For Archers Published later

    5 young Turkish archers aged 11 to 16, with a few months to three years of practice, a single-channel frontal consumer EEG headband (Mindwave Mobile 2) with its proprietary attention and calm indices, 81 arrows analysed out of 105. The arrows shot with higher indices score more: attention r = 0.335, calm r = 0.392 (both p < 0.01); together the two indices account for 24% of the variability in score from one arrow to the next (R² = 0.244, F = 12.46), with calm weighing slightly more (β = 0.365 against 0.303). The arrows of the five archers are analysed together, and in the same study the girls score more per arrow than the boys (5.76 against 4.47, p = 0.029), so the link mixes differences between arrows with differences between archers; a regional journal.

    Okçuluk Sporuyla Uğraşan Sporcuların Nöro-Geribildirim ile Odaklanma ve Sakinlik Analizi · Saygın Aydın, Vedat Ayan, Selami Yüksek

  • 2023
    Context Archers Published later

    Archers in training (30 men according to the methods, 20 traditional archers according to the abstract) with a consumer EEG headband and its concentration and relaxation indices, an arrow-by-arrow comparison over 169 arrows: on the tens (51) the relaxation index is 58.16 against 45.42 on arrows below 7 (118), p < 0.05, while concentration does not differ (44.23 against 41.19). The table says below 8 and the text below 7, and the sample is described in two different ways; a venue marked as questionable, so context.

    CONCENTRATION IMPROVEMENT TEST FOR ATHLETES IN ARCHERY TRAINING Questionable venue · Chen Feng

  • 2024
    Context Review Published later

    A narrative review of neurofeedback in the precision sports, covering studies from 1990 to 2023. It reports two comparisons between better and worse attempts: in 24 expert shooters the best attempts are preceded by more sensorimotor rhythm and less alpha at the Fz-T3 site, and in beginner archers followed for fourteen weeks the best and worst arrows differ in asymmetries at 12 Hz on the left and 4 Hz on the right. Its synthesis, taken from a 2020 review, points the other way: only the sensorimotor rhythm has a consistent link with high-level performance in precision shooting, while left temporal alpha and frontal theta and alpha give inconsistent results.

    Improving Mental Skills in Precision Sports by Using Neurofeedback Training: A Narrative Review · Stefano Corrado, Beatrice Tosti, Stefania Mancone, Tommaso Di Libero, Angelo Rodio, Alexandro Andrade, Pierluigi Diotaiuti

  • 2025
    Context Archers Published later

    26 university beginners, 30 arrows at 10 m before and after a seven-week course with one 100-minute session a week, 32-channel EEG and electromyography of six muscles. The information flowing from the cortex to the muscles (transfer entropy), measured over a window of 1.5 s before and after the peak of the finger flexors at the release, differs between arrows that miss the target, arrows scoring 6 to 8 and arrows scoring 9 to 10 (p < 0.05; Cohen's d 0.56 and 0.51 before the course, 0.20 and 0.47 after). It is a coupling between brain and muscle around the release, not the brain's activity during the aim, and in beginners at 10 m: context.

    Corticomuscular Coupling Analysis in Archery Based on Transfer Entropy · Yunrui Zhang, Yue Leng, Xiaozhi Li, Wenjing Zhang, Hairong Yu

  • 2026
    Context Archers Published later

    12 Indonesian archers aged 12 to 15, 15 shots with an instrumented bow at a screen 1.5 m away, a consumer headband with two frontal electrodes (AF7 and AF8). Beta power (12.5 to 30 Hz) is linked neither to score (r = 0.145, p = 0.652) nor to dispersion around the centre of the group (r = -0.327, p = 0.300); an archer at 42.24 µV², which the discussion calls the highest value although the results give a maximum of 43.61, was below average on both, and the best for score and grouping stood at 38.65, just under the group average (39.18). It compares archers with each other, not arrows; a regional journal.

    EEG-Based Analysis of Concentration with Shooting Accuracy and Precision in Archery Athletes: A Quantitative Correlational Study · Ainun Rahmansyah Gaffar, Pringgo Widyo Laksono, Bambang Suhardi, Rahmaniyah Dwi Astuti, Minoru Sasaki

Status history

  1. 1990 Reported The first arrow-by-arrow comparison comes from twenty-eight right-handed elite archers, with EEG over the left and right temples for sixteen shots at 45 m. Each archer's four best and four worst arrows, over the last second before release, differ only on the left: before the worst there is more power at 6, 12 and 28 Hz, while the right hemisphere does not change. It is a single study, with only two electrodes and eight arrows per archer: there is evidence in favour and it is limited, so reported.
  2. 2005 Reported A review chapter reports that in the shooting sports a rise in alpha over the left temporal region before the release goes with experience and with better scores, but that too much alpha goes with the worst shots and with the ones the shooter abandons. The finding arrives second-hand, without numbers, and adds no new measurements: the status stays reported on the 1990 study.
  3. 2010 Contested The second arrow-by-arrow comparison within the same archer goes against. Ten pre-elite Taiwanese archers shoot thirty-six arrows, and for each of them the ten best, averaging 9.48, are compared with the ten worst, 7.16, on the EEG of the two seconds before release: alpha over the left temporal and the occipital regions, exactly the measure the literature on shooters pointed to, does not tell them apart. It is a conference abstract, without test values, and it looks at only two bands on two electrodes, but it is a no with the right design, alongside the 1990 yes on twenty-eight archers: the studies on archers point in opposite directions, and the status is contested.
  4. 2015 Contested The third arrow-by-arrow comparison comes from eight experienced Croatian archers, four compound and four recurve, with a single-channel consumer EEG headband on the forehead and its attention and meditation indices. In compound the arrows do differ, though not in the expected direction: two seconds before the tens the meditation index is 43, against 64 before the eights and 57 before the nines, and attention is higher before the eights than before the nines and the tens, although there are only four eights. In recurve, by contrast, the indices during the aim do not change with the value of the arrow, and meditation separates only one second after the shot. The arrows of the four archers in each group are pooled, and the study counts once in favour and once against: the picture stays split, contested.
  5. 2019 Contested A group in Krasnodar brings new recordings during the aim in high-level archers, in two papers. The arrow-by-arrow comparison within the same archer, on five archers, finds the tens preceded by more low-frequency activity over the central frontal areas, but no difference in the two most consistent archers; it publishes no numbers, and it appears in a venue with doubtful editorial standards, which under the registry's rules does not decide a status. The other paper compares four masters of sport with each other and finds less low-frequency power in those who score more tens: it says who shoots better, not what comes before the good arrow. Neither measure moves the picture, which stays split between the 1990 yes, the 2010 no and the double result of 2015: contested.
  6. 2022 Contested In twenty-eight Chinese archers, fourteen national and fourteen provincial, the average score is linked to none of the global measures of the brain network during the aim, only to local measures of single nodes, and in the national archers some connections between forehead and back of the head go with higher scores. It is still a comparison between archers: on the single arrow there remain the 1990 yes, the 2010 no and the yes and no of 2015, and the status stays contested.
  7. 2023 Contested Another arrow-by-arrow comparison in favour arrives in a venue the registry can count: in five young Turkish archers, with a consumer EEG headband, the arrows shot with higher attention and calm indices score more (r = 0.34 and 0.39), although together the two indices explain only a quarter of the difference between one arrow and the next, and the arrows of the five are pooled instead of being compared within each archer. In the same year another arrow-by-arrow comparison, in a questionable venue, finds the relaxation index higher on tens and the concentration index unchanged. On the single arrow the count becomes three studies in favour, two of them tiny and with single-channel devices, and two against, the 2010 study that found no difference in alpha and the recurve group of 2015: the studies on archers still point in opposite directions, and the status stays contested. Even where they find a difference, they do not agree on its direction: here higher calm goes with the better arrows, in the 2015 compound group with the worse ones.
  8. 2024 Contested A review of neurofeedback in the precision sports gathers the comparisons made so far: in expert shooters the best attempts are preceded by more sensorimotor rhythm, and in beginner archers the best and worst arrows differ in the asymmetry between the two hemispheres. Its synthesis, however, warns that only the sensorimotor rhythm has a consistent link with performance, while measures of alpha and theta do not repeat from one study to the next. No new data on archers, and the review confirms that alpha is precisely the measure that does not repeat: the status stays contested.
  9. 2025 Contested In twenty-six beginners shooting at 10 m, the information flowing from the cortex to the muscles around the release differs between arrows that miss the target, arrows scoring 6 to 8 and arrows scoring 9 to 10, before and after a seven-week course (Cohen's d between 0.20 and 0.56). It is a signal that involves the brain and separates the arrows, but it measures the link with the muscles at the moment of release, not the state of the brain during the aim: it is context, and the status does not change.
  10. 2026 Contested In twelve Indonesian youngsters shooting an instrumented bow at a screen a metre and a half away, frontal beta power is linked neither to score nor to grouping, and one of the archers with the highest values was below average on both. This paper too compares archers with each other, with a two-electrode headband, and does not touch the question about the single arrow: the status stays contested, with three studies in favour and two against on the single arrow, counting the 2015 study once on each side.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). The brain's electrical activity during the aim differs before the best arrows (Version 4). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-activity-aiming-best-arrows

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_eegfreccemigliori,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {The brain's electrical activity during the aim differs before the best arrows},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-activity-aiming-best-arrows},
  note = {Version 4; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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