(HealthDayNews) -- Athletes really do look different, depending on the sport. Swimming builds up different sets of muscles than weight lifting or gymnastics.
But selection of a sport can also build other skills, according to a study published in Perceptual Motor Skills.
Researchers from the Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece, studied the perceptual skills of athletes in three different sports, and here's what they found:
- Basketball experts were best at prediction and selective attention.
- Volleyball experts performed better on perceptual speed, focused attention and estimation of speed and direction of a moving object.
- Water-polo players were best at decision making, visual reaction time and spatial orientation.