Response selection and execution skills of professionals and novices during singles tennis competition.

This study extended research on sport expertise concerning the development of cognitive and motor skills in singles tennis (McPherson, 1999). 12 adult male professional and novice tennis players were videotaped during singles competition. Opponents for matches were randomly selected within each group of participants. Two tennis experts utilized an observational scale to judge players' performance generated during competition for serves and shots following the serve, e.g.. return of serves, lobs. Each player was scored on three performance components: quality of movement to or control of the ball for serves or shots attempted (control skills), appropriateness of serve or shot selections in the context of game situations (response selection skills), and quality of serves or shots produced (response execution skills). Relative frequency scores for the highest category of each performance component were derived according to the number of opportunities to respond. Serve performance indicated both groups were able to control their serves: however, professionals made more tactical selections and forceful executions. Shot performance indicated professionals made more successful movement to and control of shots, tactical shot selections, and forcing shot executions than novices. Overall, players' tactical response selections were greater than their forceful response executions. Thus, assessing players' decisions during competition may provide vital information concerning tactical skill development. Further, professional players exhibited higher and more consistent tactical behavior than elite collegiate players examined in 1999 by McPherson. Findings were attributed to tactical knowledge and motor skill development resulting from competition and practice experiences.     

Expert anticipation from deceptive action

Expertise in sports enhances the ability to anticipate forthcoming events from the observation of a player’s actions. In the present study, we investigated whether this ability is applicable to deceptive action. In three experiments, performance at anticipating the direction change of a running opponent was examined with experienced rugby players and novice counterparts. These experiments were conducted with reaction-time and temporal-occlusion tasks, in combination with eye movement recordings and the presentation of filmed actions and their point-light representations. The main finding was that the experienced players were superior to the novices in their anticipation of deceptive actions, although their performance was still impaired by the deception, in comparison with their anticipation of nondeceptive actions. We also found that the experienced players anticipated nondeceptive actions less accurately than the novices, suggesting that the players’ expectations of deceptive actions worked negatively on their judgments of nondeceptive actions. The results obtained with the point-light representations closely resembled those obtained with the filmed sequences, indicating that anticipation was based on the kinematics of the running action. These results are discussed in the context of recent developments in research on expertise and deception in sports.     

Quantifying synergies in two-versus-one situations in team sports: An example from Rugby Union

Collective behaviors in team sports result in players forming interpersonal synergies that contribute to performance goals. Because of the huge amount of variables that continuously constrain players’ behavior during a game, the way that these synergies are formed remain unclear. Our aim was to quantify interpersonal synergies in the team sport of Rugby Union. For that purpose we used the Uncontrolled Manifold Hypothesis (UCM) to identify interpersonal synergies that are formed between ball carrier and support player in two-versus-one situations in Rugby Union. The inter-player angle close to the moment of the pass was used as a performance variable and players running lines velocities as task-relevant elements. Interpersonal synergies (UCM values above 1) were found in 19 out of 55 trials under analysis, which means that on 34% of the trials, the players’ running line velocities contribute to stabilizing the inter-player angle close the moment of the pass. The strength of the synergy fluctuates over time indicating the existence of a location effect during attack phases in Rugby Union. UCM analysis shows considerable promise as a performance analysis tool in team sports to discriminate between skilled sub-groups of players.     

Mechanisms underpinning successful decision making in skilled youth soccer players: an analysis of visual search behaviors

The authors examined the complex interactions between perception, cognition, and expertise by using a film-based decision-making test. They stratified 40 youth soccer players (aged 13.0-15.8 years) into groups by using a within-task criterion. They assigned the players to successful or less successful groups on the basis of their performance on a laboratory-based test of tactical skill. Using soccer-specific film simulations, movement-based response measures, and eye movement registration techniques, the authors determined the players' decision-making processes and skill level. The results showed that investigators can use film-based tests to discriminate soccer players of comparable experience and playing level on the basis of their decision-making skills. When compared with their less successful counterparts, successful decision-makers used more goal-oriented search strategies, which resulted in superior performance, as characterized by faster decision times and greater response accuracy. Successful decision-makers (a) spent more time fixating the player in possession of the ball and (b) alternated gaze more frequently between that player and other areas of the display. An earlier study in which researchers (R. Vaeyens, M. Lenoir, A. M. Williams, L. Mazyn, & R. M. Philippaerts, 2007) stratified participants into groups on the basis of playing level had not revealed those differences. The implication of the present findings is that a within-task criterion provides investigators with a more sensitive approach when they try to identify the mechanisms underlying decision-making skill. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Processing deceptive information in sports: Individual differences for responding to head fakes depends on the attentional capability of the observer

In team sports, players sometimes try to deceive their opponents by providing misleading information in order to gain a temporal advantage. Head-fakes are often applied when a player gazes in one direction, while passing/shooting the ball in another direction. The opponent is challenged to focus attention on the relevant information (i.e., pass direction), while ignoring the conflicting information (i.e., gaze direction). The present study aimed to identify the link between attentional capabilities and the effectiveness of head fakes. Twenty-seven novices performed in a basketball-specific head-fake task and in the attention-window task. A correlation between performances in both tasks revealed that participants with higher attentional capabilities were better able to focus their attention on the relevant feature (pass direction), when judging basketball situations, than participants with lower attentional capabilities. The results emphasize the relevance of high attentional capabilities in team sports and indicate that focusing one’s attention to the pass direction poses a possibility of reducing the effects of head fakes.     

Influence of Expertise on the Intentional Transfer of Motor Skill

Intentional transfer of expert knowledge is an important issue in cognitive science and motor skills. How subjects deliberately transfer expertise in karate when learning a closely related motor skill (tai chi) was examined in this study. Subjects (N = 20) learned a videotaped sequence of self-defense movements, evaluated their learning, and then performed the sequence. Self-regulation of learning is believed to be central to effective transfer. The measures of self-regulation were accuracy of self-evaluation, video use, and approach to learning. Results showed that unlike novices, experts used self-regulation, learning strategies, and the video player in more complex ways in self-regulation. Experts, as compared with novices, demonstrated their greater knowledge through the higher quality of their performance and their better comprehension of movement meaning; but both groups recalled an equal number of moments, suggesting that both experts and novices transferred general knowledge about learning.     

Trust my face: cognitive factors of head fakes in sports

In many competitive sports, players try to deceive their opponents about their behavioral intentions by using specific body movements or postures called fakes. For example, fakes are performed in basketball when a player gazes in one direction but passes or shoots the ball in another direction to avert efficient defense actions. The present study aimed to identify the cognitive processes that underlie the effects of fakes. The paradigmatic situation studied was the head fake in basketball. Observers (basketball novices) had to decide as quickly as possible whether a basketball player would pass a ball to the left or to the right. The player's head and gaze were oriented in the direction of an intended pass or in the opposite direction (i.e., a head fake). Responding was delayed for incongruent compared to congruent directions of the player's gaze and the pass. This head fake effect was independent of response speed, the presence of a fake in the immediately preceding trial, and practice with the task. Five further experiments using additive-factors logic and locus-of-slack logic revealed a perceptual rather than motor-related origin of this effect: Turning the head in a direction opposite the pass direction appears to hamper the perceptual encoding of pass direction, although it does not induce a tendency to move in the direction of the head's orientation. The implications of these results for research on deception in sports and their relevance for sports practice are discussed.     

Gritting One’s way to success – Grit explains skill in elite youth soccer players beyond (deliberate) practice

Practice is one of the most important predictors of skill. To become an expert, performers must engage in practice for a prolonged time to develop the psychological characteristics necessary for outstanding performance. Deliberate practice (DP), that is focused repetitive activities with corrective feedback, is particularly beneficial for skill development. The amount of accumulated DP differentiates experts and novices. However, the predictive strength of DP weakens considerably when it comes to differentiating between differently skilled experts, leaving a way clear for other non-practice related factors to exercise their influence. In this paper, we demonstrate using a large sample (388) of elite youth soccer players that one such factor, the personality trait of grit, predicts expertise level both directly and indirectly. Grittier players accumulated more time in coach-led team practice, the activity, which is arguably closest to DP in team sports, which in turn predicted the skill level. Other practice activities, such as self-led training or playing with peers, were not predictive of skill level, neither were they influenced by grit. Grit, however, continued to exert a direct positive influence on the skill level of players even after accounting for the hours of DP accumulated. Overall, a standard deviation of change in the grit score resulted in at least a third of standard deviation improvement in skill. Our findings highlight the need for the inclusion of additional factors in theoretical frameworks in situations where the predictive power of traditional expertise factors, such as practice, is limited.     

中国象棋经验棋手与新手的知觉差异:来自眼动的证据

为探讨中国象棋领域内的专长效应及象棋专长的知觉编码优势,研究采用中国象棋棋局为实验材料,对比了经验棋手和新手在观看象棋棋局时视觉搜索、变化觉察和对棋盘的记忆。实验1呈现真实棋局和随机棋局,要求被试观看5秒后复盘,结果发现经验棋手的复盘正确率高于新手;经验棋手注视棋盘的眼跳幅度和瞳孔直径更大;经验棋手更多注视棋子间而不是棋子本身。实验2采用移动窗口范式控制了观看棋盘时视野大小,结果发现经验棋手在副中央凹呈现时复盘正确率更高,而新手不受视野大小的影响。实验3采用闪烁范式要求棋手觉察变化的棋子,结果发现经验棋手的觉察速度和正确率都优于新手;而且经验棋手在报告变化前就利用中央凹和副中央凹注视到了变化的棋子。结论认为:中国象棋与国际象棋类似,也存在专长的知觉编码优势效应;经验棋手不仅对棋盘记忆更好,而且可以利用存贮的组块和长期练习经验选择性加工棋盘结构信息,利用副中央凹提取信息,具有更大的知觉广度。研究为象棋专家可以利用副中央凹加工棋盘及具有更强的知觉编码能力提供了直接的证据。     

Skilled players’ and novices’ difficulty anticipating left- vs. right-handed opponents’ action intentions varies across different points in time

A left-handers’ performance advantage in interactive sports is assumed to result from their relative rarity compared to right-handers. Part of this advantage may be explained by athletes facing difficulties anticipating left-handers’ action intentions, particularly when anticipation is based on kinematic cues available at an early stage of an opponent’s movement. Here we tested whether the type of volleyball attack is predicted better against right- vs. left-handed opponents’ movements and whether such handedness effects are evident at earlier time points in skilled players than novices. In a video-based experiment volleyball players and novices predicted the type of shot (i.e., smash vs. lob) of left- and right-handed volleyball attacks occluded at six different time points. Overall, right-handed attacks were better anticipated than left-handed attacks, volleyball players outperformed novices, and performance improved in later occlusion conditions. Moreover, in skilled players the handedness effect was most pronounced when attacks were occluded 480 ms prior to hand-ball-contact, whereas in novices it was most evident 240 ms prior to hand-ball-contact. Our findings provide further evidence of the effect of an opponent’s handedness on action outcome anticipation and suggest that its occurrence in the course of an opponent’s unfolding action likely depends on an observers’ domain-specific skill.     

Transfer of pattern recall skills may contribute to the development of sport expertise

Superior recall of domain‐specific patterns is well established as a defining attribute of expert performers. Recent studies on the developmental histories of expert team ball sport players (e.g. Baker, Côté, & Abernethy, 2003a ) also suggest that experts characteristically receive exposure to a wide range of sports in their developing years and that this related sports experience may reduce the amount of sport‐specific training needed to become an expert. This study examined whether the facilitation of expertise associated with other sport experience might arise from positive transfer of pattern recall skills from one sport to another. Expert netball, basketball and field hockey players and experienced non‐experts performed a recall task for patterns of play derived from each of these sports. Experts from sports different to those shown in the presented pattern consistently outperformed non‐experts in their recall of defensive player positions, suggesting some selective transfer of pattern recall skills may indeed be possible. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

网球运动专长对深度运动知觉影响的ERP研究

结合专家-新手范式与ERP技术,研究网球运动专长对个体深度运动知觉产生的影响。通过记录网球专家和新手各19名进行深度运动模式判断时的行为和ERP数据,比较两组个体深度运动知觉的行为反应差异和脑电特征。结果显示,网球专家组深度运动知觉的判断准确率高于新手组;新手组在球体靠近时P1(PO7点)的潜伏期比球体远离时的潜伏期长,专家组无显著性差异;专家组在球体靠近时的P2(Oz点)成分潜伏期长于球体远离时的潜伏期。结果表明,网球运动专家的深度运动知觉能力在准确性上较新手高;运动专长效应与选择性注意资源的调用以及模式识别有关;枕区P2成分可作为深度运动知觉的评价指标。     

Detecting deception in a bluffing body: The role of expertise

Studies of deception detection traditionally have focused on verbal communication. Nevertheless, people commonly deceive others through nonverbal cues. Previous research has shown that intentions can be inferred from the ways in which people move their bodies. Furthermore, motor expertise within a given domain has been shown to increase visual sensitivity to other people’s movements within that domain. Does expertise also enhance deception detection from bodily movement? In two psychophysical studies, experienced basketball players and novices attempted to distinguish deceptive intentions (fake passes) and veridical intentions (true passes) from an observed individual’s actions. Whereas experts and novices performed similarly with postural cues, only experts could detect deception from kinematics alone. These results demonstrate a link between action expertise and the detection of nonverbal deception.     

Chronometric comparisons of imagery to action: visualizing versus physically performing springboard dives

Motor imagery research emphasizes similarities between the mental imagery of an action and its physical execution. In this study, temporal differences between motor imagery and its physical performance as a function of performer expertise, skill complexity, and spatial ability were investigated. Physical execution times for springboard dives were compared with visualized execution times. Results indicate that physical and visualized performance times were not identical: Their relation is a function of dive complexity and diver expertise, but not their interaction. Relative to physical time, visualization time increased with increased complexity, suggesting the involvement of capacity-limited working memory. A nonmonotonic relation was found for expertise: Unlike experts or novices, visualization time for intermediates was significantly slower than physical time. These temporal differences are most consistent with schematic differences in skill representation. Intermediates may be relatively slowed by greater amounts of nonautomatized knowledge, as compared with the automatized knowledge of experts or the sparse knowledge of novices.     

运动技能水平与躯体感觉输入对运动表象的影响

运动表象质量与运动技能水平有关,运动表象质量随着运动技能水平的提高而上升。器械使用可使人脑产生可塑性改变,使用者会将器械纳入身体图式。然而,两者影响运动表象的神经心理机制还不清楚。本研究采用功能性磁共振成像探析篮球运动员与新手在不同持球条件下表象投篮时脑功能活动的差异。结果表明运动员表象质量较好,镜像神经系统激活高于新手;持球条件下运动员表象质量显著高于不持球条件下,镜像神经系统激活程度显著低于不持球条件下。研究说明持器械可以显著提高运动员的表象质量,器械使用带来镜像神经系统的可塑性变化。     

Table Tennis Experts Outperform Novices in a Demanding Cognitive-Motor Dual-Task Situation

Abstract

Theories on motor skill acquisition predict that earlier learning stages require more attention, which should lead to higher cognitive-motor dual-task interference in novices as compared to experts. Expert and novice table tennis players returned balls from a ball machine while concurrently performing an auditory 3-back task (working memory). The groups did not differ in 3-back performance in the single task. Cognitive dual-task performance reductions were more pronounced in novices. A similar pattern emerged for the number of missed balls in table tennis, except that experts outperformed novices already in the single task. Experts consistently showed costs of about 10%, while novices showed costs between 30% and 50%. The findings indicate that performances of novices suffer considerably in motor-cognitive dual-task situations.     

The role of domain-specific practice, handedness, and starting age in chess

The respective roles of the environment and innate talent have been a recurrent question for research into expertise. The authors investigated markers of talent, environment, and critical period for the acquisition of expert performance in chess. Argentinian chess players (N = 104), ranging from weak amateurs to grandmasters, completed a questionnaire measuring variables including individual and group practice, starting age, and handedness. The study reaffirms the importance of practice for reaching high levels of performance, but it also indicates a large variability: The slower player needed 8 times as much practice to reach master level than the faster player. Additional results show a correlation between skill and starting age and indicate that players are more likely to be mixed-handed than individuals in the general population; however, there was no correlation between handedness and skill within the sample of chess players. Together, these results suggest that practice is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the acquisition of expertise, that some additional factors may differentiate chessplayers and nonchessplayers, and that starting age of practice is important.     

The expert advantage in dynamic pattern recall persists across both attended and unattended display elements

We examined how differences in attention influence how expert and novice basketball players encode into memory the specific structural information contained within patterns of play from their sport. Our participants were primed during a typical recall task to focus attention on either attacking or defending player formations before being asked to recall the attended or unattended portion of the pattern. Adherence to the instructional set was confirmed through an analysis of gaze distributions. Recall performance was superior for the experts relative to the novices across both the attended and unattended attacking and defensive pattern structures. Expert recall of attacker positions was unchanged with and without attention, whereas recall accuracy for the positions of defenders diminished without attention, as did the novices’ recall of both attack and defense formations. The findings suggest that experienced performers are better than novices at encoding the elements from a complex and dynamic pattern in the absence of focused attention, with this advantage being especially evident in relation to the recall of attacking structure. Some revision of long-term memory theories of expertise will be necessary to accommodate these findings.     

Response bias in judging deceptive movements

Two not mutually exclusive explanations, perceptual and motor expertise, account for the finding that experts outperform novices in recognizing deceptive actions from bodily (kinematic) cues. The aim of the present study was twofold: First, we sought to examine the impact of motor and perceptual expertise on distinguishing deceptive and non-deceptive actions. Second, we tested the hypothesis that differences in perceptual judgments on deceptive movements vs. non-deceptive movements do not necessarily need to be caused by either perceptual or motor expertise differences, but can also be a result of response bias. Skilled handball players (field players and goalkeepers) and novices had to detect whether a penalty-taker shot or faked a shot at the goal. Signal detection theory (SDT) analysis revealed that skilled handball players outperformed novices in discriminating shots from fakes. No differences in perceptual sensitivity were found between the goalkeepers and the field players. However, SDT analysis showed that goalkeepers were significantly biased to judge movements as deceptive, while neither field players nor novices showed this response bias.     

Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill

A widely cited result asserts that experts’ superiority over novices in recalling meaningful material from their domain of expertise vanishes when they are confronted with random material. A review of recent chess experiments in which random positions served as control material (presentation time between 3 and 10 sec) shows, however, that strong players generally maintain some superiority over weak players even with random positions, although the relative difference between skill levels is much smaller than with game positions. The implications of this finding for expertise in chess are discussed and the question of the recall of random material in other domains is raised.