In team sports, success and failure often depend on athletes' decision-making skills, which rely on perceptual and cognitive abilities. Virtual reality (VR) can simulate realistic sporting scenarios, allowing athletes to practice reading the game, processing information, and making rapid, accurate decisions. Despite its promise, evidence on the effectiveness of VR training for enhancing perceptual-cognitive skills remains limited. This study investigates whether VR training improves decision-making accuracy and whether these improvements transfer to underlying cognitive functions.


Twenty-eight youth football players from a professional club participate in a within-subjects study during the competitive season. Participants are tested at baseline (T0), after four weeks of control (T1), and after four weeks of VR-based cognitive training (T2). A total of 55 videos are recorded using a GoPro Max in HERO mode. These consist of variations of seven base formations, including passing, shooting, and dribbling. Training involves watching 15 videos via a Meta Quest headset, three times per week. Videos play up to a decision point, prompting players to verbalise their intended course of action, and then resume to show the optimal response. Players view the scenario from a first-person perspective, visualising themselves performing the action. Twenty unique videos are used for assessment at T0, T1, and T2. The primary outcome is decision-making accuracy within 1.5 seconds. At each time point, np-tests (TMT-L, Go/No-Go) from the Vienna Test System are administered to explore far-transfer effects on response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and information processing speed. At T2, participants complete questionnaires assessing embodiment, sense of presence, and the perceived usefulness and ease of use of VR.


VR can be a valuable tool for off-field training, enhancing decision-making accuracy by providing immersive, safe, and repeatable scenarios. This study provides insights into designing effective VR-based cognitive training and explores its far-transfer effects on cognition.