Sylvain Laborde

Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln | DSHS · Department of Performance Psychology

The aim of this paper is to set the stage for the vagal tank theory, showcasing a functional resource account for self-regulation. The vagal tank theory, building on neurophysiological, cognitive and social psychology approaches, will introduce a physiological indicator for self-regulation that has mainly been ignored from cognitive and social psyc...

Psychophysiological research integrating heart rate variability (HRV) has increased during the last two decades, particularly given the fact that HRV is able to index cardiac vagal tone. Cardiac vagal tone, which represents the contribution of the parasympathetic nervous system to cardiac regulation, is acknowledged to be linked with many phenomena...

This review targets emotional intelligence (EI) in sport and physical activity. We systematically review the available literature and offer a sound theoretical integration of differing EI perspectives (the tripartite model of EI) before considering applied practice in the form of EI training. Our review identified 36 studies assessing EI in an athl...

Emotional intelligence (EI) has received very scant attention from researchers in the sport domain to date, yet emotions are key to sport performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the influence of trait EI in athletes when they have to face the stress of competition. Thirty male handball players (MAge = 22.5 years; SD = 1.7) were...

Cardiac vagal control (CVC) reflects the activity of the vagus nerve regulating cardiac functioning. CVC can be inferred via heart rate variability measurement, and it has been positively associated to a broad range of cognitive, emotional, social, and health outcomes. It could then be considered as an indicator for effective self-regulation, and g...

One goal of sport psychology research is to assist athletes in adapting their training and competitive behavior to maintain or enhance high-level performance under stressful and competitive conditions. To extend this research into esports, a comprehensive understanding of the stress-performance relationship in esports is essential. This knowledge c...

This systematic review and meta-analysis assesses independently the acute effects of anodal and cathodal motor cortex transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on athletic performance in healthy adults. Besides, it evaluates the unique and conjoint effects of potential moderators (i.e., stimulation parameters, exercise type, subjects’ training...

Competitive sport has the potential to increase chronic stress and, hence, the risk of burnout. The aim of this paper was, first, to examine the relationship between athlete burnout and trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and, second, to look at the mediating role of coping strategies between TEI and athlete burnout. In two samples of athletes (N1 =...

Adapting to the ever‐changing demands of the environment requires a complex interplay between cognitive‐affective, neuronal, and autonomic processes. Vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is positively associated with both cognitive‐affective functioning and prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. Accordingly, the Neurovisceral Integration Mode...

Purpose Research supports physical activity as a method to heighten stress resistance and resilience through positive metabolic alterations mostly affecting the neuroendocrine system. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has been proposed as a highly effective time-saving method to induce those changes. However, existing literature relies heavil...

Abstract While researchers and practitioners attribute an essential role to executive functions (EFs) for soccer performance, the usefulness of respective diagnostics and the predictive value remain unclear. One limitation restricting the translation and relevance of study results to improve actual game performance is the insufficient consideration...

This case study utilized the holistic ecological approach to talent development as a framework to examine the structure and influence of an elite League of Legends environment. We conducted semistructured interviews with five elite male players ( M age = 20.2, SD age = 2.95) and three elite coaches ( M age = 24.67, SD age = 3.21). In addition, obse...

Breathing techniques, particularly slow-paced breathing (SPB), have gained popularity among athletes due to their potential to enhance performance by increasing cardiac vagal activity (CVA), which in turn can help manage stress and regulate emotions. However, it is still unclear whether the frequency of SPB affects its effectiveness in increasing C...

Introduction Long-duration space missions will be a real challenge for maintaining astronauts' adaptability. Research on transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is expanding rapidly, and its modalities constitute a major research challenge. A growing number of reviews stress the need to validate biomarkers for monitoring effects to enhance o...

This contribution highlights the significance of using vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), a general indicator of adaptation, as an actionable biomarker to assess and enhance self-regulation abilities in individuals and organizations. The paper reviews the state-of-the-art on vmHRV and introduces various techniques to enhance vmHRV, in...

Adapting to the ever-changing demands of the environment requires a complex interplay between cognitive-affective, neuronal, and autonomic processes. Vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is positively associated with both cognitive-affective functioning and prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. Accordingly, the Neurovisceral Integration Mode...

In sports, physical recovery following exercise‐induced fatigue is mediated via the reactivation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). A non‐invasive way to quantify the reactivation of the PNS is to assess vagally‐mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), which can then be used as an index of physical recovery. This systematic review and met...

Electrical vagus nerve stimulation (eVNS) comprises an array of non-pharmacologic techniques used to stimulate afferent fibers of the vagus nerve. Despite the increasing use of eVNS both in clinical settings and in research, there is still a need for a valid biological marker that can be used to indicate the action of eVNS in the central as well as...

Competitive sport has the potential to increase chronic stress and hence the risk of burnout. The aim of this paper was first to examine the relationship of athlete burnout to trait emotional intelligence (TEI), and second looking at a mediation effect of coping strategies between TEI and athlete burnout. In two samples of athletes (N1 = 290; N2 =...

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a psychophysiological measure of particular interest in esports due to its potential to monitor player self-regulation. This study aimed to systematically review the utilisation of HRV in esports. Consideration was given to the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of previous works to provide recommendations...

Research investigating the effects of carbohydrate (CHO) mouth rinsing on neurocognitive functions is currently limited and has yielded inconsistent results. In this study, we employed the event-related potential (ERP) electroencephalography technique to investigate the effect of CHO mouth rinsing on electrophysiological correlates of visuospatial...

Current research in brain stimulation suggests transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) as a promising tool to modulate cognitive functions in healthy populations, such as attention, memory, and executive functions. Empirical evidence in single task contexts, suggests that taVNS promotes holistic task processing, which strengthens t...

Both the Neurovisceral Integration Model and the Vagal Tank Theory propose cardiac vagal activity (CVA) as proxy for self-regulatory or processing resources required for attentional and top-down control as key mechanisms in executive functioning or emotion-regulation. These resources have, according to the Dual Competition Model, limited capacity a...

Introduction Covid-19 is a viral airway and systemic infection which can negatively affect the function of the autonomic nervous system. Cardiovascular autonomic function is essential for peak athletic performance. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a Covid-19 disease on the autonomic nervous system of German elite athletes using he...

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of online emotional competencies (EC) training, and more specifically the relationships between adherence, confidence, and alliance and the effects of mental training on EC. A longitudinal four-wave measurement design (pre-intervention, post-knowledge development, post-abilities development, and post-dis...

Dual career athletes are exposed to many stressors, for example, balancing deadlines with competition schedules. Slow-paced breathing (SPB) is an accessible relaxation technique, which can be practiced via smartphone applications, however delivery through applications has limited exploration. We discuss a four-week intervention delivered to dual ca...

Introduction Parental personality traits are predicted to influence offspring outcomes through parenting behavior and offspring personality traits. This study explored whether mother and father personality traits relate to offspring behavior problems in mid‐late adolescence Method In total, 3089 Australian adolescents (1576 boys, 1513 girls; Mage...

Emotions play an important role in sport. This chapter provides a timely overview of research on emotions from both sport psychology and general psychology. This current chapter covers emotions from evolutionary perspectives, the experience, assumed functions, and connections with physiology. Subsequently, we review studies on the connection betwee...

Previous research has produced inconsistent findings regarding the role of altruism in mating success. This study sought to test whether altruism (charity/volunteer work) relates to number of offspring. A nationally representative sample of Australian adults was separated into those unlikely to have more children (n = 4,296; age ≥ 45 [women], age ≥...

Breathing techniques are predicted to affect specific physical and psychological states, such as relaxation or activation, that might benefit physical sport performance (PSP). Techniques include slow-paced breathing (SPB), fast-paced breathing (FBP), voluntary hyperventilation (VH), breath-holding (BH), and alternate- and uni-nostril breathing. A s...

Soccer referees have to make quick and accurate decisions while experiencing physical stress (i.e., fatigue) and psychological stress (i.e., pressure from the crowd). Researchers have examined the influence of physical and psychological stress on skilled referees’ decision-making performance separately; however, referees usually experience both typ...

The popularity of electronic sports (esports) has increased over the last decade, and knowledge has been shared between sports and esports. Yet, research on esports coaching remains conspicuously absent. From this position, sport coaching researchers and practitioners lack an evidenced base to inform their critical consideration of esports coaching...

Parent personality traits are thought to influence offspring outcomes through inherited traits and parenting styles. This study sought to test associations between parental personality traits and adolescent sexual behaviour. In total, 3089 Australian adolescents (1576 boys, 1513 girls; age 16–17 years) provided information on their sexual activity,...

This article aimed to synthesize the various triggers of the diving response and to perform a meta- analysis assessing their effects on cardiac vagal activity. The protocol was preregistered on PROSPERO (CRD42021231419; 01.07.2021). A systematic and meta- analytic review of cardiac vagal activity was conducted, indexed with the root mean square of...

Emotional dispositions have been found to influence outcomes and have applications in many areas, such as in the clinical, health, social, educational, and organizational domains. Specifically, they may influence individuals’ addictive behaviour tendencies. The aim of this study was to investigate the convergent validity between two questionnaires...

The aim of this research was to investigate the role of trait emotional intelligence (EI) in recovery stress states in a mountain ultra-marathon (MUM) race. Recovery stress states of 13 finishers were assessed before, during, and immediately after the end of an extreme MUM, whereas emotional intelligence was assessed 2 days before the MUM race. Tem...

Sport and Exercise Psychology (SEP) often adopts physiological markers in theory and practice, and one measure receiving increasing attention is heart rate variability (HRV). This paper aimed to provide a scoping review of the use of HRV within SEP. The protocol was made available on the Open Science Framework. Study inclusion criteria were examina...

Langsames Atmen, um die Folgen einer Covid-19-Erkrankung zu behandeln? Was sich ungewöhnlich anhört, ist eine wirksame Maßnahme, um die Herzaktivität zu verringern. Die Autoren stellen noch andere Maßnahmen vor, mit denen Sportlerinnen und Sportler in Zeiten der Coronapandemie ihre mentale und physische Gesundheit verbessern können.

Introduction Slow-paced breathing (SPB) is a well-known relaxation technique in athletes, which has also the potential to help optimize addiction treatments based on its effects on the autonomic nervous system. Specifically, these effects directly impact cardiac vagal activity (CVA), the activity of the vagus nerve regulating cardiac functioning. T...

Voluntary slow breathing (VSB) is used as a prevention technique to support physical and mental health, given it is suggested to influence the parasympathetic nervous system. However, to date, no comprehensive quantitative review exists to support or refute this claim. We address this through a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of...

Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation are widely used to test the involvement of specific cortical regions in various domains such as cognition and emotion. Despite the capability of stimulation techniques to test causal directions, this approach has bee...

Seminal work has found a negative association between physical exercise and impulsivity levels in humans. This paper aims to strengthen these findings by evaluating the association between the amount of self-reported physical exercise per week and emotion-related impulsivity whilst considering age and gender as covariates on a large-scale dataset....

Performing two tasks at the same time (dual-tasking) leads to performance decrements. This performance decline has been attributed to between task interference due to simultaneously occurring stimulus response translation processes. In the context of parallel processing, prioritizing of Task 1 has been found to reduce dual-task interference. This i...

Clinical research on the beneficial effects induced by slow-paced breathing has been increasingly extended in the past twenty years. Improvements in cardiovascular functioning, executive functions, or stress management appear to be among the most prominent observations in these studies. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects are multiple...

Introduction Among the factors influencing academic performance (AP), individual differences at the trait level such as personality and emotional competences (EC) have been found to play a critical role, similarly to state variables such as perceived stress (PS). Material and methods The aim of this study was to clarify whether the influence of pe...

Cognitive failures represent everyday task failures that individuals are normally capable of completing. While cognitive failures measured with the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire can be considered a trait, the psychophysiological states associated with cognitive failures are yet to be fully understood. The aim of this paper was to investigate the...

Sexism is often discussed in amateur and professional sport but has rarely been the focus of scientific research. This study sought to test whether benevolent and hostile sexism relate to dark personality traits (the dark core of personality [D]) and whether benevolent and hostile sexism and D differ across age, performance levels, and athlete sex....

The practice of slow-paced breathing (SPB) has been linked to a range of positive outcomes, such as decreasing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, as well as increasing well-being. Among the suggested mechanisms of action, SPB has been shown to increase cardiac vagal activity (CVA). The present study aimed to investigate whether there is a...

Human research has shown interactions between rewards and cognitive control. In animal models of affective neuroscience, reward administration typically involves administering orosensory sugar signals (OSS) during caloric-deprived states. We adopted this procedure to investigate neurophysiological mechanisms of reward-cognitive control interactions...

We aimed to investigate whether emotional competencies (EC) correlate with the ability to judge or predict the score in sports competitions based on thin slices of nonverbal emotional expressions. We created a German version of the Profile of Emotional Competence (PEC; Brasseur et al., 2013) and assessed its psychometric properties. In Study 1, 379...

Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback, referring to slow‐paced breathing (SPB) realized while visualizing a heart rate, HRV, and/or respiratory signal, has become an adjunct treatment for a large range of psychologic and medical conditions. However, the underlying mechanisms explaining the effectiveness of HRV biofeedback still need to be uncove...

The popularity of electronic sports (esports) has increased exponentially over the last ten years and a thriving professional level with high-profile players, coaches and support staff now exists (Pedraza-Ramirez, Musculus, Raab & Laborde, 2020). Despite this extraordinary growth and proliferation of publications in areas such as player performance...

Slow-paced breathing has been shown to enhance the self-regulation abilities of athletes via its influence on cardiac vagal activity. However, the role of certain respiratory parameters (i.e., inhalation/exhalation ratio and presence of a respiratory pause between respiratory phases) still needs to be clarified. The aim of this experiment was to in...

Designing emotional intelligence training programs requires first testing the effectiveness of techniques targeting its main dimensions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a brief slow-paced breathing (SPB) exercise on psychophysiological variables linked to emotion regulation, namely cardiac vagal activity (CVA), as well as pe...

This research sought to test whether sport participation relates to the development of trait extraversion across three life phases. Sport participation and extraversion were measured in children aged 10.5 ± 0.5 years (n = 3600), in adolescents aged 14.5 ± 0.5 years (n = 3463), and in adults with a mean age of 49.4 ± 18.0 years (n = 12,280), with co...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been causing major disruptions in the sporting world. Negative physiological and psychological effects on athletes have been reported, such as respiratory issues and increased stress. Therefore, it is timely to support this population by presenting cost-effective and accessible intervention techniques to...

The tendency to think about or consciously control automated movements (i.e., move-ment-specific reinvestment) is a crucial factor associated with falling in the elderly. We tested whether elderly people’s movement-specific reinvestment depended on their past falling history and whether it can predict future error-prone movement. In a longitudinal...

The aim of this experiment was to test the immediate effects of slow-paced breathing on executive function. Slow-paced breathing is suggested to increase cardiac vagal activity, and the neurovisceral integration model predicts that higher cardiac vagal activity leads to better executive functioning. In total, 78 participants (41 men, 37 women; M ag...

Objective: This cross-sectional questionnaire-based study aims to compare physical activity and nature exposure levels between people living in France and Germany during the lockdown. Furthermore, the secondary aim is to observe the relationship between perceived stress, psychological health, physical activity, and nature exposure in Germany and Fr...

Efforts in optimizing transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) are crucial to further develop its potential in improving cognitive and autonomic regulation. The present study focused on this topic. The aim was to compare for the first time the main stimulation areas of the ear currently used in studies with tVNS, taking cognitive as well as ne...

Previous views on the construct of intuition deemed it unreliable and only purely analytical thinking was seen as the ideal form of human reasoning. However, now there is increasing empirical evidence that intuitions can play a vital role in successful human adaptation. Intuitions are a non‐deliberative mode of thinking, based on knowledge stored i...

Previous views on the construct of intuition deemed it unreliable and only purely analytical thinking was seen as the ideal form of human reasoning. However, now there is increasing empirical evidence that intuitions can play a vital role in successful human adaptation. Intuitions are a non‐deliberative mode of thinking, based on knowledge stored i...

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of an emotional competences (EC) training with domestic horses on equestrianś trait EC. To this end, an experimental group (n = 26) received a specific EC training intervention with horses as medium (in group format), whereas the control group (n = 25) did not receive any training. The intervention co...

After a decrease in its practice, the interest in hitchhiking is currently renewed. However, so far, very little is known about the personality characteristics of hitch-hikers. Consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate the associations between hitchhiking and personality traits, with the Big Five and emotional compe-tences. Five hundre...

Psychological stress is ubiquitous in sport. Unsurprisingly then, research that examines the antecedents, correlates, consequences, and interventions pertaining to psychological stress in sport is sizable and broad. With this Research Topic we aimed to capture the breadth and depth of work taking place around the theme of adaptation to psychologica...

This study explored whether personality relates to past and subsequent use of illicit drugs. A near-representative sample of 12,525 Australian adults (5772 men; 6743 women) completed self-report measures of personality at baseline and returned to complete measures of personality and illicit drug use four years later. After controlling for sociodemo...

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve s...

This scoping review sought to identify every published study on extraversion in sport. A narrative synthesis was used to interpret findings across research themes. The evidence was graded with validated measures that use quantitative criteria to establish the quality of report writing and confidence in the findings reported. A comprehensive electro...

Background Individuals are able to perform goal-directed behaviors thanks to executive functions. According to the neurovisceral integration model, executive functions are upregulated by brain areas such as the prefrontal and cingulate cortices, which are also crucially involved in controlling cardiac vagal activity. An array of neuroimaging studie...

This study aimed to investigate the associations between individual difference factors (chrono-type, Big Five, emotional competences) and perceived stress in French university students. In total, 362 students agreed to take part (M age = 20.19 ± 1.75 years). Participants completed the Caen Chronotype Questionnaire, Big Five Inventory, the Profile o...

The manifestations of emotions go hand in hand with sport and, as a result, have the ability to permeate sporting performance. Emotional intelligence (EI) is broadly defined as the individual responses to intrapersonal or interpersonal emotional information and incorporates the identification, expression, understanding, and regulation of one’s own...

The aim of this research was to detangle the association between attention, working-memory (focusing on both control and capacity functions), and sport performance across athletic expertise. Specifically, the mediating effect of working-memory-control and working-memory-capacity on the attention and performance relationship will be investigated, an...

Competitive gaming, better known as electronic sports (esports), is rapidly growing in popularity. We systematically reviewed the available literature regarding the psychological aspects of esports using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) evidence-based reporting checklist and a Population, In...