Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Sport Psychology Research

This article aims at introducing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a neuroimaging technique for the assessment of cortical processes during physical activity. Compared with other neuroimaging techniques, fNIRS has a relatively low susceptibility to movement artifacts and very high portability. fNIRS could potentially be a useful addition to neuroscientific methods currently used for sport psychology research. This article provides a brief introduction of the basic physical principles of fNIRS and an analysis of the relative strengths and limitations of this method for sport psychology research. Further, a brief discussion is presented of some fNIRS-based findings that are relevant to sport psychology research. To conclude, a sport psychology research perspective where fNIRS will hopefully be used in future research is proposed as an example.