On the independence of golf scores for professional golfers

This study involved professional golfers who played in 1999 on the Professional Golfers' Association Tour (PGA Tour, N=2,967), Senior Professional Golfers' Association (SPGA Tour, N=2,751), and the Ladies Professional Golfers' Association (LPGA Tour, N=2,638) and investigated whether there is independence between golfers' scores on consecutive rounds within tournaments. The mean correlations between scores on consecutive rounds for players on the PGA Tour (r=-.08, p<.01) and LPGA Tour (r=-.03, p=.05) were negative although negligible and of little practical importance. There was a small, positive correlation (r=.27, p<.01) between scores on consecutive rounds for players on the SPGA Tour. Such evidence suggests the greater dependence of golf scores on the SPGA Tour may be due to the greater range of players' skill on that tour.     

An examination of the "hot hand" in professional golfers

A study investigated the "hot hand" among professional golfers. Hole-to-hole scores within 747 tournaments from a randomly chosen group of 35 players on the 1997 PGA Tour were analyzed. Contingency analyses gave no evidence for the "hot hand". Players were just as likely to score a birdie or better following a par or worse hole as make a birdie or better following a birdie or better hole. These results are consistent with those found for individual players in baseball and basketball.     

Are European and American golf players different? Reply to Engelhardt (1997)

Analysis of 1998 statistics for individual performance in the PGA European Tour yielded significant differences between some shot-making skills (drive distance, total driving, greens in regulation, and sand saves) between the top 10 and bottom 10 money winners, replicating (with partially different results) a result found for the 1995 American PGA Tour by Engelhardt.     

Comprehensive analysis of golf performance on the PGA Tour: 1990-2004

Researchers have investigated the relationship between different shot-making measures and performance on the PGA Tour. Prior studies have typically focused on a short period of time or used a restricted sample so long-term trends were not discernible. To remedy this situation, the present study looked at the longitudinal performance of professional golfers from 1990-2004. The findings indicated a remarkable stability in terms of the relative importance of Greens In Regulation and Putting Average in explaining the variability in Scoring Average. The findings also indicated a declining importance of driving in recent years due, in part, to a strengthening of the negative relationship between Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy.     

The beauty of match play

This study investigated whether higher seeded players have an advanage in the only match play event on the PGA Tour. Analysis showed that the higher seeded won 54% of the time (p=.06); the correlation was .17 (p<.01) between higher seeded players winning and the difference in World Rankings between players. Given professional golfers are at the highest end of the distribution of golf ability, these players are so nearly equal in ability, it is mainly a matter of chance who will win a match play event or who will have the best round on any given day.     

Is the independence of golf scores for professional golfers a statistical artifact?

This study investigated whether the lack of day-to-day consistency in performance for professional golfers would occur if round ranks were employed instead of round scores. When players' round scores from the 2004 Clark study were converted to round ranks, the results were very similar to those found in that study. It was concluded that the range of abilities for professional golfers is so restricted that the fluctuation in players' scores or rankings will show little consistency from day to day.     

Children and chess expertise: The role of calibration

Summary Three studies of calibration are reported. Calibration refers to the accuracy with which one can predict one's own performance. In the first study child chess players, non-chess playing parents, and statistics students were asked to predict chances of winning chess games against hypothetical opponents. These subjective probabilities were compared to the actual probabilities, based on the Elo rating system. Better players' predictions were better calibrated. Confidence and ratings are negatively correlated, indicating that with lower ratings, players are overconfident. Skilled child players' predictions were better calibrated than any of the adults'. In the second study subjects were asked to estimate chances of winning in conjunctive situations, e. g., winning all the rounds in a tournament. Again, better child players were more accurate in their predictions and more accurate than adults. In the third study, child players were asked to predict their chances of winning in a non-chess domain after hearing a hypothetical win/loss history. Higher-rated players' predictions were again better calibrated, even though the domain was outside their expertise. The motivational and cognitive implications of calibration are discussed.     

Parity of match play: an LPGA replication

This study investigated whether the slight advantage of higher seeded players to win in match play on the men's Professional Golfers' Association Tour generalizes to the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. Analysis showed no significant advantage for the higher seeded player in match play. The highly restricted range of skill of tour players makes it mainly a matter of chance who will win any match-play event or who will have the better or worse scores on any given day.     

亲社会视频游戏对玩家人性化知觉水平的影响

为了探讨亲社会视频游戏对玩家人性化知觉的影响, 研究以大学生为被试, 通过两个实验, 分别采用自陈报告法和单类别内隐联想测验技术考察了亲社会视频游戏对玩家自我及他人外显及内隐人性化知觉的影响。结果发现:(1)相对于中性游戏, 不论是普遍人性, 还是独特人性, 亲社会视频游戏均可提高玩家对自我及他人外显的人性化知觉水平;(2)相对于中性游戏, 亲社会游戏可显著提高玩家对自我及他人独特人性的内隐知觉水平, 也可提升对自我普遍人性的内隐知觉水平, 但对他人普遍人性的内隐知觉的效应不明确。这些结果表明, 亲社会视频游戏对于提升玩家对自我和他人的人性化知觉水平具有重要作用。     

Learning foreign sounds in an alien world: videogame training improves non-native speech categorization

Although speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions, some are perceptually weighted more than others and there are residual effects of native-language weightings in non-native speech perception. Recent research on nonlinguistic sound category learning suggests that the distribution characteristics of experienced sounds influence perceptual cue weights: Increasing variability across a dimension leads listeners to rely upon it less in subsequent category learning (Holt & Lotto, 2006). The present experiment investigated the implications of this among native Japanese learning English /r/-/l/ categories. Training was accomplished using a videogame paradigm that emphasizes associations among sound categories, visual information, and players' responses to videogame characters rather than overt categorization or explicit feedback. Subjects who played the game for 2.5h across 5 days exhibited improvements in /r/-/l/ perception on par with 2-4 weeks of explicit categorization training in previous research and exhibited a shift toward more native-like perceptual cue weights.     

Recognition accuracy by experienced men and women players of basketball

This study examined 30 experienced basketball players' recognition accuracy by sex, playing position (guard, forward, and center), and situations in the game of basketball. The study used a perceptual cognitive paradigm in which subjects viewed slides of structured and unstructured game situations and accurately recognized the presence or absence of the basketball. A significant difference in recognition accuracy by sex, players' position, and structure of the game situation was found. Male players' recognition accuracy was better than the female players'. The recognition accuracy of subjects who played guard was better than that of subjects who played forward or center. The players' recognition accuracy was more accurate when observing structured plays versus unstructured plays. The conclusion of this study suggested that experienced basketball players differ in their cognitive and visual searching processes by sex and player position within the sport of basketball.     

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

There is much evidence that chess skill is based on chunks in memory that represent parts of positions from previously encountered games. However, the content of these chunks is a matter for debate. According to one view, (1) the closer two pieces are to each other on a board (proximity), the more likely they are to be in the same chunk, and (2) skilled players encode the precise locations of pieces. An alternative view is that what information is encoded in a chess chunk is determined more by processing of the attack/defense relations during evaluation. In three experiments, participants evaluated positions and completed recognition tests. Experiment 1 supported the view that expert players make more use of attack/defense relations than of locations of pieces in a recognition test. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that, for both long and short presentation times, expert players' recognition for a piece within a position was primed more by a piece related by attack or defense than by a piece merely proximal. These findings challenge theories of expertise for chess that assume a primary role for proximity and location in determining which pieces are grouped together in memory.     

The intentional mind and the hot hand: Perceiving intentions makes streaks seem likely to continue

People can appear inconsistent in their intuitions about sequences of repeated events. Sometimes people believe such sequences will continue (the “hot hand”), and sometimes people believe they will reverse (the “gambler’s fallacy”). These contradictory intuitions can be partly explained by considering the perceived intentionality of the agent generating the streak. The intuition that streaks will continue (reverse) should emerge in contexts involving agents that are perceived to be intentional (unintentional), and should be most common among those who are most inclined to attribute intentions to other agents. Four studies support these predictions, identifying both situational and dispositional determinants of the perceived continuity of streaks. Discussion focuses on the foundational nature of intentionality for perceptions of interdependence between events, the relationship between these findings and existing theoretical accounts, and the inverse possibility that people use perceptions of streakiness as a cue for an agent’s intentionality.     

Habermas in the Lab: A Study of Deliberation in an Experimental Setting

This study outlines a new paradigm for the investigation of the effects of deliberation on political decisions. Specifically, it uses the ultimatum game as a situation in which the opportunity to deliberate and the placement of this opportunity are experimentally manipulated. Structural factors, such as the players' roles and their ability to vote on the proposal being offered, are also manipulated as a basis for comparison. Two outcomes are examined: the games' allocations, and players' perceptions of fairness. After controlling for structural factors, deliberative opportunity creates a more equitable distribution of money and enhances fairness perceptions. However, these results hold only when such an opportunity occurs before the proposal stage. Deliberative opportunity after the proposal stage has no discernible impact. A survey of participants found that their personal characteristics and political predispositions influence perceptions of fairness for proposers, but not for acceptors. These findings demonstrate the potential benefits of deliberation while highlighting the importance of the nature of its implementation in determining its level of success.     

The effect of viewing the moving limb and target object during the early phase of movement on the online control of grasping

Two experiments were conducted to investigate (1) during which phase of the movement vision is most critical for control, and (2) how vision of the target object and the participant's moving limb affect the control of grasping during that movement phase. In Experiment 1, participants, wearing liquid crystal shutter goggles, reached for and grasped a cylinder with a diameter of 4 or 6 cm under a shutting paradigm (SP) and a re-opening paradigm (RP). In SP, the goggles closed (turned opaque) 0 ms, 150 ms, 350 ms, 500 ms, or 700 ms after movement onset, or remained open (transparent) during the prehension movements. In RP, the goggles closed immediately upon movement onset, and re-opened 0 ms (i.e., without initially shutting), 150 ms, 350 ms, 500 ms, or 700 ms after the initial shutting, or remained opaque throughout the prehension movements. The duration of the prehension movements was kept relatively constant across participants and trials at approximately 1100 ms, i.e., the duration of prehension movements typically observed in daily life. The location of the target object was constant during the entire experiment. The SP and RP paradigms were counter-balanced across participants, and the order of conditions within each session was randomized. The main findings were that peak grip aperture (PGA) in the 150 ms-shutting condition was significantly larger than in the 350 ms-shutting condition, and that PGA in the 350 ms-re-opening condition was significantly larger than in the 150 ms-re-opening condition. These results revealed that online vision between 150 ms and 350 ms was critical for grasp control on PGA in typical, daily-life-speeded prehension movements. Furthermore, the results obtained for the time after maximal deceleration (TAMD; movement duration-time to maximal deceleration) demonstrated that early-phase vision contributed to the temporal pattern of the later movement phases (i.e., TAMD). The results thus demonstrated that online vision in the early phase of movement is crucial for the control of grasping. In addition to the apparatus used in Experiment 1, two liquid shutter plates placed in the same horizontal plane (25 cm above the experimental table) were used in Experiment 2 to manipulate the visibility of the target and the participant's moving limb. The plate closest to the participant altered vision of the limb/hand, while the more distant plate controlled vision of the object. The conditions were as follows: (1) both plates were open during movement (full vision condition); (2) both plates were closed 0, 150, or 350 ms following onset of arm movement (front-rear condition: FR); or (3) only the near plate closed 0, 150, or 350 ms following the onset of the arm movement (front condition: F). The results showed that shutting at 0 and 150 ms in the FR condition caused a significantly larger PGA, while the timing of shutting in the F condition had little influence on the PGA. These findings indicated that online vision, especially of the target object, during the early phase of prehension movements is critical to the control of grasping.     

The name of the game: predictive power of reputations versus situational labels in determining prisoner's dilemma game moves

Two experiments, one conducted with American college students and one with Israeli pilots and their instructors, explored the predictive power of reputation-based assessments versus the stated "name of the game" (Wall Street Game vs. Community Game) in determining players' responses in an N-move Prisoner's Dilemma. The results of these studies showed that the relevant labeling manipulations exerted far greater impact on the players' choice to cooperate versus defect--both in the first round and overall--than anticipated by the individuals who had predicted their behavior. Reputation-based prediction, by contrast, failed to discriminate cooperators from defectors. A supplementary questionnaire study showed the generality of the relevant short-coming in na?ve psychology. The implications of these findings, and the potential contribution of the present methodology to the classic pedagogical strategy of the demonstration experiment, are discussed.     

Revising superior planning performance in chess players: the impact of time restriction and motivation aspects

In a previous study (Unterrainer, Kaller, Halsband, & Rahm, 2006), chess players outperformed non-chess players in the Tower of London planning task but exhibited disproportionately longer processing times. This pattern of results raises the question of whether chess players' planning capabilities are superior or whether the results reflect differences in the speed-accuracy trade-off between the groups, possibly attributable to sports motivation. The present study was designed to disambiguate these alternative suggestions by implementing various constraints on planning time and by assessing self-reported motivation. In contrast to the previous study, chess players' performance was not superior, independently of whether problems had to be solved with (Experiment 1) or without (Experiment 2) time limits. As expected, chess players reported higher overall trait and state motivation scores across both experiments. These findings revise the notion of superior planning performance in chess players. In consequence, they do not conform with the assumption of a general transfer of chess-related planning expertise to other cognitive domains, instead suggesting that superior performance may be possible only under specific circumstances such as receiving competitive instructions.     

Your words are my words: Effects of acting together on encoding

Social influences on action and memory are well established. However, it is unknown how acting together affects the incidental encoding of information. The present study asked whether coactors encode information that is relevant to a partner's task, but irrelevant to their own task. In Experiment 1, participants performed a categorization task alone and together, followed by a surprise free recall test where they were asked to recall items from the categorization task. Recall was better not only for items that participants had responded to themselves, but also for items that their coactor had responded to, than for items that had not required a response. The same results were found in Experiment 2, even though financial incentives motivated participants to only encode words they had responded to themselves. Together, the findings suggest that performing tasks together can modulate how information relevant to coactors is processed. Shared task representations may act as a vehicle for establishing shared memories.     

Studying the effects of self-talk on thought content with male adult tennis players

The current study examined the effects of self-talk on thought content during a tennis forehand crosscourt exercise. 16 adult tennis players (M age = 37.3 yr., SD = 8.31) were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. After completing three baseline assessments, the players of the intervention group developed and implemented self-determined instructional cue words throughout three intervention trials. The participants' thought content was divided into three categories, and repeated-measures analyses of variance indicated a significant group by time interaction for execution-related thoughts and outcome-related thoughts, but not for circumstance-related thoughts. Follow-up comparisons showed that the experimental group players' execution-related thoughts increased and outcome-related thoughts decreased significantly, whereas thought content did not change significantly in the control group. The results of this study provided evidence for the effects of self-talk on players' thought content and supported the idea that self-talk could help athletes to focus on task relevant information.