Quickly distinguishing between opponents' jerseys and those of teammates is crucial in invasion sports like basketball, where teams share the same playing space. This is a cognitive skill that can be trained. A study led by a team of researchers from the University of Milano-Bicocca has shown that selective attention, especially that based on visual features, is better in athletes who play invasion sports. These skills are essential in every sport, influencing performance and adaptability. However, until now, few studies had explored how the type of sport practiced could sharpen specific components of selective attention. To address this gap, a team of researchers — Luisa Girelli, Simona Perrone, Simone Mattavelli, and Marco Petilli (University of Milano-Bicocca), Luca Bovolon (University of Chieti and Pescara), and Carlotta Lega (University of Pavia) — conducted a study titled “Playing sports to shape attention: enhanced feature-based selective attention in invasion sports players”, recently published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise. The researchers had athletes perform experiments to understand how the cognitive demands of different sports — specifically invasion sports versus non-invasion sports (typically those with a net dividing the playing field and teams not sharing space) — influence two subcomponents of selective attention: Feature-Based Attention (FBA) and Spatial-Based Attention (SBA). “The results showed that invasion sport athletes have greater feature-based attention, while no significant differences were found in tasks measuring spatial attention.” These findings suggest that training in invasion sports specifically enhances FBA without affecting general spatial attention. “Intensive sports practice is one of the best forms of training for our cognitive functions”, concluded Luisa Girelli, professor of Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milano-Bicocca and co-author of the study. “Invasion sports outperform others due to their specific impact on feature-based selective attention”.