Cross-sectional differences in inhibitory control between adolescent badminton trainees and age-matched non-athletes: a Flanker task study

Background Inhibitory control matures rapidly during early adolescence and supports academic achievement, emotion regulation, and social adjustment. Open-skill sports such as badminton, which combine aerobic demand, decision-making under perceptual uncertainty, and continuous response inhibition, are thought to confer greater cognitive benefits than closed-skill activities; direct behavioral evidence in amateur adolescent trainees aged 12–15 years nonetheless remains scarce. Methods In a between-group cross-sectional design, 32 adolescents (mean age 13.5 years; 1–3 years of amateur badminton training, ≥3 sessions/week) and 30 age-matched, non-exercising controls completed an arrow-version Flanker task; trainees also completed a training-history questionnaire. Reaction time, error rate, and the Flanker conflict effect were compared with independent-samples t -tests, Cohen’s d , and Bayes factors, and corroborated by a mixed ANOVA, a trial-level mixed-effects model, and Inverse Efficiency Scores. Within the training group, Pearson correlations linked training years and weekly frequency to the four Flanker indices, with Benjamini–Hochberg correction across the eight tests. Results The training group responded faster than controls under both congruent ( d = 0.54) and incongruent ( d = 1.07) conditions and made fewer errors under the incongruent condition ( d = 1.02). The RT conflict effect (training M = 56.7 ms; control M = 94.3 ms; d = 1.41) and the error-rate conflict effect ( d = 0.91) were both substantially smaller in the training group. Within the training group, training years correlated negatively with the RT conflict effect ( r = −0.62, p < 0.001) and with incongruent-condition RT ( r = −0.42, p = 0.016); weekly training frequency yielded correlations of the same direction but with lower statistical power. Conclusion Adolescent badminton trainees aged 12–15 displayed substantially smaller Flanker conflict effects than age-matched non-exercising peers, and conflict-effect magnitude was negatively associated with training duration within the training group. Because the design is cross-sectional, causal inference is not warranted: badminton participation is associated with, rather than shown to cause, superior inhibitory control, and the differences should be read as an upper bound on any training effect. These findings are consistent with the open-skill exercise hypothesis and motivate longitudinal and randomized confirmation.