Abstract: Objective: To explore the characteristics of behavior inhibition (BI) of top table tennis players, and to learn the relationship between table tennis experience and BI. Methods: We assessed the effect of table tennis experience by Go/No-go task in high-level group, medium-level group and low-level group; experimental materials relevant and irrelevant to experience were selected; in addition, in order to improve the ecological validity, we attempted to change the Go/No-go task's reactive mode from press short-distance keys to press long-distance keys. Results: 1) In the short-distance key press task, the reactions of high-level group in general cognitive tasks were obviously shorter than the others (P<0.01, P<0.001) and the same in experience tasks (P<0.01, P<0.001). There was no difference between medium-level group and low-level group (P=0.411, P=0.225). The error rate of high-level group in experience task was obviously less than low-level group (P<0.05); 2) In the long-distance key press task, the BI advantage of high-level group further expanded, and the react time of medium-level group was obviously less than the low-level group in the task relevant to experience (P<0.001). Conclusions: Compared with beginners, elite table tennis players have better BI, whose advantage was not only embodied in task relevant to experience, but also could be transferred to the general cognitive tasks. The secondary table tennis players only had the advantage of BI in tasks relevant to experience.

Key words: table tennis, experience, behavioral inhibition, response distance