Level Up! Assessing the Impact of Short and Long-term Virtual Reality Training on E-Athletes' Reaction Time and Eye-Hand Coordination

E-sports, or electronic sports, have emerged as a popular form of competition in the digital age. With growing involvement from well-known and established enterprises, e-sports has grown into a thriving industry. Being a professional e-athlete has become a dream for many young people. A crucial aspect of e-athletic performance is the level of cognitive functions, including reaction time, motor time and eye-hand coordination. Both conventional and virtual reality trainings have been shown to improve these skills. In this study, 128 amateur e-athletes (80 males, 48 females, mean age 22.7±4.02) were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: E8 (n=32), training for eight consecutive weekdays and E28 (n=30), training for twenty-eight consecutive weekdays as well as two control groups: C8 (n=34) and C28 (n=32), with a similar number of men and women in both groups. Differences in daily gaming time, e-sports experience, age, and initial level of reaction time and eye-hand coordination between groups were not statistically significant. Groups E8 and E28 underwent 15-minute training sessions in the VR game, Beat Saber, for successively eight and twenty eight consecutive weekdays. The study found that training in VR improved motor time and eye-hand coordination in both E8 and E28 groups, improvement in reaction time was observed only in E28 group.