| Abstract: | Drawing upon evidence from broader social psychology, and an illustrative study of frequency-estimation during a simple, sport-specific observe-and-recall task, this paper makes the case for the more thorough investigation of the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973 Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1973. Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5: 207–232. Crossref], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]) on practical state-of-play reasoning in largely observational sporting activities. It is argued that this evidence particularly substantiates a need for a more robust body of research in two primary domains: (a) the gatekeeping tasks pertinent (and usually preliminary) to an individual's sporting performance such as talent scouting, team selection, and substitution decisions, and (b) the business of officiating in high-tempo environments. |
