I doubt that one's true—I would guess that within-sex variation in testosterone influences performance, too. Visuospatial ability might be an interesting example (the "optimal" T level is above the female mean but below the male mean)
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>Visuospatial ability might be an interesting example (the "optimal" T level is above the female mean but below the male mean) Definitely not - hitting a baseball is the purest visuospatial test in sports and it's massively enhanced by exogenous testosterone*
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"Definitely not"—overconfident much?! That would be an interesting speculation in the absence of better data, but people actually study this stuff! My source is Arthur Jensen, The g Factor, Ch. 13., who cites https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/1041608095900055 … and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/1041608095900039 …pic.twitter.com/913YNOQ2LZ
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Yes, optimal level of testosterone for the single most visuospatial weighted real world tested task is above that of a professional male athlete in peak condition and his performance improves greatly with testosterone supplementation. 1/2pic.twitter.com/qKzXIzpX3l
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Replying to @CovfefeAnon @zackmdavis and
Somewhere below the first red line is when Bonds reacted to McGwire and Sosa eclipsing him (due to test supplementation) and joined in on it. This is better evidence than any possible study because all actors have skin in the game. No MLB hitter ever chose to suppress test 2/2
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All baseball players have skin in the game of hitting baseballs, which we agree draws on some mental abilities (reaction time at the very least!). Not obvious that the thing Jensen means by "visuospatial" (which is what I meant in my Tweet about T) is a large component in hitting
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It's an interesting question - what exactly is the mental trait involved in hitting a baseball? Needs reaction time, fast pattern recognition to recognize pitches, etc. Benefits from more T. Also seems to be a rare mental trait that doesn't show ability gaps between races.
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You claimed that contact rates don't decrease with T supplementation, but do they increase? My null hypothesis here is that all the effect is from strength (swing bat faster, more likely to hit past fielders) and not mental effects
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Just using Bonds and leaving off his not full season rookie year and the year where it's unknown when / how much he was using T (1999). Pre T - 7616 PA, 948 K - 12.45% Post T - 4072 PA, 437 K - 10.49% Hitting past fielders isn't really a factor in baseball - BABIP tracks this
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Replying to @CovfefeAnon @zackmdavis and
BABIP is a bit complicated but basically batted balls fall into four buckets: Line drives Fly balls Ground balls Pop ups The distribution of balls between buckets changes, but the distribution *within* buckets is consistent across hitters with normal variation.
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Post 1999 Bonds made more contact and harder contact and also was pitched around - in 2001 he hit safely 156 times but 73 of those balls were out of the park entirely.
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Replying to @CovfefeAnon @zackmdavis and
Strength is useful for all of those but the question is if there's some decline in hand eye coordination that's holding hitters back when they supplement T - doesn't seem to be the case.
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