Matteo Campagna
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Attention and cognitive function in archers: what research has measured since 1986

Faster reflexes, sharper perception, more working memory: since 1986 researchers have looked for something extra in archers, with lights, joysticks, brain scanners and pen-and-paper tests, and have found little. This page follows how the question shifted, from what archers have that others lack to how they distribute and hold their attention, and what is known today about the link with score.

Studies in the registry
55
On archers
34
Years
1986-2026

The question

The idea is as old as the sport: putting sixty arrows in the gold should take a sharper eye, quicker reflexes and more staying power in concentration. Since 1986 researchers have tried to measure this with lights that come on in sequence, joysticks, brain scanners and pen-and-paper tests. The story has a clear direction: it starts with a search for superior perceptual abilities in archers, finds few, and ends with measuring how archers distribute their attention and how well they hold it.

This page follows the studies in chronological order. Where to direct attention during the shot is a separate question, covered in the article on attentional focus; the mental training experiments are told in full on the page about mental training.

1986: the first large study

It all starts in the United States: between 1982 and 1984 Landers and colleagues measured recurve archers ranging from beginners to an Olympic gold medallist. The six attention scales of a classic questionnaire, which describe how broad or narrow attention is and whether it points outwards or inwards, were not linked to the year's average score: across roughly 119 archers the correlations ranged from -0.16 to 0.17. Self-rated concentration also stayed below the study's threshold (r = 0.16), and so did the ability to anticipate the arrival of a moving light, r = -0.24 across 127 archers, a weak link the authors put down to a target that stays still and a release the archer decides. The only measure that tracked level was simple reaction time to a light, from 194.8 milliseconds in the weakest band to 173.5 in the strongest. The entries on concentration and anticipation timing start here.

2006-2017: looking for a perceptual edge

After a long silence the question returns from several directions, always with small groups. In 2012 Hamaguchi and colleagues compared eighteen Japanese university archers and kyudo practitioners with eighteen kendo practitioners: reaction time was the same, 318 against 321 milliseconds, and the difference lay in how they held back blinking after the stimulus, which the kendo group delayed more often. Later studies of reaction times, up to 2026, find no large advantage in people who shoot.

In the same year Seo and colleagues put twenty elite Korean women archers in an MRI scanner during a visuospatial memory task. They did not differ from twenty-three women who do not shoot (47.9% against 40.6% correct answers, p = 0.29), but they activated some frontal areas more; no region, however, survives statistical correction across the whole brain. In 2025 thirty-six Japanese kyudo archers filled in the picture from the other side: the correlation between working memory and accuracy on the target is -0.05. Also in 2012, among nine young Korean archers, those who saw the target as bigger shot higher-scoring arrows (r = 0.54), but they judged it after the shot.

When differences do appear, they are narrow. In a 2016 thesis Forte found that twenty-nine Irish recurve archers bisected a line on paper with much smaller errors than non-archers, 0.26 millimetres against 1.76, with the same IQ; a tactile task in 2006, on a small and very different group, had given the opposite result, and the entry on spatial attention remains contested. In 2017 Gonzalez and colleagues had British Olympic archers, club archers and students aim on a computer with a joystick: both groups of archers made fewer errors than the non-archers, but between Olympic and club archers there was no difference at all (p > 0.999). The advantage seems to arrive with the first years of practice, or to belong to the people who choose to shoot, and thirty participants cannot tell the two apart.

From 2017: how attention is distributed

At that point the questions change. In 2017 Korobeinikova and colleagues tested sixty-five young Russian archers: those in the junior national team made fewer errors on the red-and-black tables than regional-level team-mates, 2.38 against 3.50, but sporting grade and years of practice made no difference on any test, and the older archers did worse on the memory tasks. In 2021 Lu and colleagues compared 62 athletes from the Chinese national archery and shooting squad with 49 provincial athletes: the national athletes responded 29 milliseconds faster, 508 against 537, but alerting, orienting and conflict control worked the same way in both groups: faster, then, rather than differently organised. In 2022 Gu and colleagues looked at the resting EEG of thirteen Chinese national and thirteen provincial archers, archers only: the national archers spent more time in the state linked to the dorsal attention network. The entry on attention and level remains contested.

The link with score is more consistent: among sixty-one Chinese national-team archers Wang and colleagues found that a pen-and-paper attention test was related to performance in a competition the following week, with a correlation of 0.43, and three 2026 studies on groups of fifteen to forty-five archers report correlations between 0.62 and 0.79 with grid tests; in one of them, however, the link disappears once arm strength is taken into account. The entry on attention tests and score is contested. On concentration as the weakest skill there are only two small questionnaire studies from 2020, and in the Turkish one the low point is refocusing after a distraction, 13.1 out of 28.

Training attention

Of the intervention studies, nearly all recent, the strongest is the 2025 randomised trial by Baishya and colleagues: 82 Indian archers aged 12 to 20, eight weeks of yoga and blinded assessors, with the cost of distractors cut by 36.7 milliseconds compared with the waiting list and baseline alertness unchanged. Score, however, was not measured. On mindfulness the results cannot be reconciled: twenty-two Taiwanese archers became faster on the Stroop test without a control group, while the twenty-five archers of the Chinese national squad, taken on their own, went from 510 to 509 milliseconds. Computer training with moving targets, NeuroTracker, rests on a single experiment with twenty archers, a gain of 32.9 points at 30 metres against 19.7, partly published in a questionable venue, and slow breathing has a single study on beginners.

There is also the reverse question, whether shooting trains attention. In 2025 Hussain and colleagues randomly assigned twenty adult beginners to six weeks of shooting or to no activity: response times improved in both groups (the controls from 910 to 811 milliseconds on the Stroop test), a sign that repeating a test improves it on its own. In 2026 thirty-eight Chinese archers of provincial or national level scored slightly lower than sedentary people on an interference test, 42.8 against 48.1, because they completed fewer items, not because they made more errors. The entry on archery as attention training is contested.

What remains open

Forty years on, almost everything we know comes from comparisons made at a single point in time, which cannot separate the effect of years of shooting from the kind of person who takes up the sport and stays. The two largest comparisons between levels mix archers with shooters, and the tests are done seated, in front of a screen or a sheet of paper, far from the seconds of aiming. No study has followed the same archers over several years, and above all the evidence everything else depends on is missing: apart from the small NeuroTracker experiment, nobody has shown that attention improved on a test turns into points on the target.

How we came to know it

  1. 1986OriginLanders et al. 1986 A Psychobiological Study of Archery PerformanceThe first large study, of recurve archers from beginner to Olympic gold: the attention scales of a questionnaire are not linked to score (r between -0.16 and 0.17), anticipation timing only weakly (r = -0.24 across 127), while reaction time to a light falls from 194.8 to 173.5 milliseconds from the weakest band to the strongest.
  2. 2012ContradictionHamaguchi et al. 2012 A study of eyeblinking and attention concentration in Kendo practitionersEighteen Japanese university archers and kyudo practitioners react like eighteen kendo practitioners, 318 against 321 milliseconds; the difference lies in blinking, which the kendo group holds back longer after the stimulus, and in the archers no measure tracks level.
  3. 2012ExtensionSeo et al. 2012 Stronger activation and deactivation in archery experts for differential cognitive strategy in visuospatial working memory processingThe first functional MRI study: twenty elite Korean women archers do not differ from twenty-three non-archers on a visuospatial memory task (47.9% against 40.6%, p = 0.29), but activate frontal areas more, with differences that survive only correction restricted to areas chosen in advance.
  4. 2012ExtensionLee et al. 2012 An Archer's Perceived Form Scales the "Hitableness" of Archery TargetsNine young Korean archers judge the size of the target after each arrow: the bigger it looks, the higher the arrow scores (r = 0.54), with the judgement made after the shot.
  5. 2016ExtensionForte 2016 The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational PseudoneglectAn Irish thesis brings the first visual comparison: twenty-nine recurve archers bisect a line on paper with much smaller errors than thirty non-archers, 0.26 against 1.76 millimetres, with the same IQ. A touch task in 2006, on a small and very different group, had given the opposite result.
  6. 2017ExtensionGonzalez et al. 2017 Exploring the quiet eye in archery using field- and laboratory-based tasksIn a joystick aiming task on a computer, Olympic and club archers make fewer errors than students who do not shoot, but their accuracy does not differ at all (p > 0.999).
  7. 2017ExtensionKorobeinikova et al. 2017 Psychological features of attention in archerySixty-five young Russian archers: the junior national team makes fewer errors on the red-and-black tables than the regional level, 2.38 against 3.50, but sporting grade and years of practice make no difference on any test, and the older archers do worse on the memory tasks.
  8. 2019ExtensionKim et al. 2019 Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean ArchersThe first data on gaze: watching a film of a shot, seven Korean national-team archers make more fixations and fewer saccades than seven university archers before stepping onto the line, in an analysis with more degrees of freedom than fourteen people allow.
  9. 2021ExtensionLu et al. 2021 Efficiency and Enhancement in Attention Networks of Elite Shooting and Archery AthletesThe largest comparison between levels, 62 athletes from the Chinese national archery and shooting squad against 49 provincial athletes: the national athletes respond 29 milliseconds faster, but the three attention networks work the same way in both groups, and in the twenty-five archers mindfulness does not change response times.
  10. 2022ExtensionGu et al. 2022 Research on Top Archer's EEG Microstates and Source Analysis in Different StatesThe first comparison between levels in archers only using resting EEG: thirteen Chinese national-team archers spend more time than thirteen provincial archers in the state linked to the dorsal attention network.
  11. 2022ExtensionWang et al. 2022 Effect of Cognitive Reappraisal on Archery Performance of Elite Athletes: The Mediating Effects of Sport-Confidence and AttentionAmong sixty-one Chinese national-team archers a pen-and-paper attention test is related to the competition the following week, with a correlation of 0.43: the strongest sample up to then, and the first with the test taken before the competition.
  12. 2025ExtensionBaishya et al. 2025 Effects of Yoga on the Efficiency of the Attentional Networks in Competitive Archers: A Randomized Controlled TrialThe first randomised trial with blinded assessors of an attention intervention: eight weeks of yoga cut the cost of distractors by 36.7 milliseconds in 82 young Indian archers, without measuring score.
  13. 2025ContradictionHussain et al. 2025 Effectiveness of Archery Training on Attention and Cognitive Function: An Electroencephalography (EEG) StudyTwenty adult beginners randomly assigned to six weeks of shooting or to no activity: on the Stroop test response times improve equally in both groups, a sign that the gain comes mostly from repeating the test.
  14. 2025ReplicationKitahara et al. 2025 The Effect of Working Memory Capacity and Kyudo Experience on Kyudo PerformanceThirty-six Japanese university kyudo archers: the correlation between working memory and hits is -0.05, in the same direction as the 2012 Korean study.
  15. 2026ReplicationNurida et al. 2026 Concentration Level and Arm Muscle Endurance Relationship to Archery AccuracyForty-five Indonesian juniors: a concentration grid test is related to score over 36 arrows at 30 metres with r = 0.70, one of three 2026 studies pointing the same way.
  16. 2026ContradictionGao et al. 2026 Do archery athletes’ hand dexterity, strength, and cognition exceed those of age-matched athletes and non-athletes? A cross-sectional studyThirty-eight Chinese archers of provincial or national level score slightly lower than sedentary people on an interference test, 42.8 against 48.1, because they complete fewer items, not because they make more errors.

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Claims in the registry with at least one of these studies among their evidence.

111 claims · 95% with evidence on archers

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Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Attention and cognition in archers: research since 1986. In Research. matteocampagna.com. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/attention-cognition

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_enresearchattentioncognition,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Attention and cognition in archers: research since 1986},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Research, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/attention-cognition},
  note = {accessed 2026-10-16}
}