Matteo Campagna
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The longer an archer's brain stays in a frontally generated state while aiming, the lower the score

1 study · 28 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2022202420262022, context, n = 282022, for, n = 26
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.

A single study says so, on thirteen Chinese national team archers. Over the last three seconds of the aim the EEG signal in the alpha band was broken down into four recurring configurations, the microstates, and one of them, which source reconstruction places in the superior frontal gyrus, lasts longer and takes up more time in the archers with the lower average scores: duration r = -0.80, coverage r = -0.73. In the other thirteen archers, from a provincial team, no microstate parameter is linked to score (r between -0.18 and 0.30), and the transitions from one state to another are linked to score in neither group. In both groups the brain during the aim moves most often towards a state placed in a left temporal area involved in language, which the authors read as a sign that it is being inhibited. Three things limit the reading. It is a correlation across thirteen people, which a single one of them can shift a great deal. It is a comparison between archers, which says nothing about what happens before the single arrow. And the other paper from the same group, largely on the same archers, finds the links between brain network and score more in the provincial archers than in the national team, that is, in the group where none appear here.

Also phrased as: "overthinking while aiming"; "frontal activity and score"; "eeg microstates in archery"; "the thinking brain while aiming"

In practice

It is said that while aiming the archer should not think: when the head reasons, gives orders and checks, the shot gets worse.

Evidence

  • 2022
    For Archers Published later

    13 Chinese national team archers and 13 from a provincial team, 32-channel EEG at rest and over the last 3 s of the aim, 30 arrows each, alpha-band microstates and source reconstruction (sLORETA). In the national team archers the duration of microstate C, which during the aim the reconstruction places in the superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 11), relates to the average score with r = -0.798 and its coverage with r = -0.726 (corrected p 0.001 and 0.005); in the provincial archers none of the twelve correlations between score and the duration, occurrence and coverage of the microstates is significant (r from -0.182 to 0.300), and the transition probabilities do not correlate with score in either group. During the aim, in both groups, the most likely transition is towards a microstate placed in left area 37, temporal and involved in language, which the authors read as its inhibition.

    Research on Top Archer's EEG Microstates and Source Analysis in Different States · Feng Gu, Anmin Gong, Yi Qu, Hui Xiao, Jin Wu, Wenya Nan, et al.

  • 2022
    Context Archers Published later

    The same group, largely on the same archers (14 from the national team and 14 provincial), analyses the brain network over the last second of the aim: no global network measure is linked to score, and the significant correlations with local measures are more numerous in the provincial archers; in the national team archers some beta connections between the front and the back of the head go with higher scores (p < 0.01). It counts only once together with the microstate paper, and on the group in which the links appear it points the opposite way.

    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

Status history

  1. 1984 Not studied The registry's bibliography does not yet contain anything linking a brain state during the aim to archers' scores.
  2. 2022 Reported In thirteen Chinese national team archers, the longer the brain stays in the frontally generated state during the aim, the lower the average score (duration r = -0.80; coverage r = -0.73). In the provincial archers no microstate parameter is linked to the result, while in the same group's paper on the brain network it is the other way round: the links show up more in the provincial archers. In both groups the most frequent transition during the aim is towards a state placed in a left temporal area involved in language, which the authors read as a sign that it is being inhibited. A correlation computed on thirteen people can hinge on a single one of them: reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). The longer an archer's brain stays in a frontally generated state while aiming, the lower the score (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/frontal-brain-state-aiming-score

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_frontalemirapunteggio,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {The longer an archer's brain stays in a frontally generated state while aiming, the lower the score},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/frontal-brain-state-aiming-score},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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