Hicks law + Anticipation Flashcards
Define Hicks law
As the number of choices increases, so does reaction time (more choices you have the slower you respond).
- In sport this law can be used to gain an advantage as you keep your opponent guessing.
Example of Hicks law
When serving in tennis, you can mix up your serves with direction or slice so that your opponent is never sure which one they are going to face.
- The variety will increase response preparation time and hopefully delay the actions of the opponent.
Limitation of Hicks law
- This law is not always a straightforward linear relationship. (Reaction time does not always increase at the same rate as choices increase).
Why….
Player can become familiar with their environment and in our tennis example, as the game gets into its later stages, the opponent may have got use to the types of serves being played and their response time becomes slightly quicker.
NEXT TASK
Look up Hicks law the graph in notes + draw it!!!!!!!
The single channel hypothesis
Single channel hypothesis= Only one stimuli can be processed at a time. (bottleneck hypothesis).
- Second stimulus arrives before first response can be completed.
- What happens: the second stimulus must wait until the first has been processed.
- The problem: Delay in processing second stimulus/ longer response/ slower reaction time (the more choices, the slower the response= Hick’s Law).
Single channel hypothesis- more info
- Stimuli are processed along a single nerve.
- Brain can only process one stimulus at a time.
- Stimuli must wait for the previous one, before it can be dealt with.
- Causes a bottleneck at a nerve.
The psychological refractory period
- The delay, is caused by confusion of the second stimuli arriving before the first has been processed. This is called the psychological refractory period.
- We can only process one stimuli at a time- ‘bottleneck theory’.
What would happen if a stimulus arrives before we had completed the processing of a previous stimulus?
The performer might ‘freeze’ completely for a split second, depending on how long it takes to sort out the conflicting information.
Sporting example- boxing
- The initial stimulus is the opponent faking a jab, the second stimulus is the opponent throwing a hook instead with the other arm.
- As the second stimulus arrives before the first response can be completed, the boxer cannot deal with the second stimulus until finished with the first stimulus/ response/ psychological refractory period.
- The boxer therefore has a slower/ longer reaction time.
- Boxer reacts too late and takes a hit to the face/ suffers the consequences.
K.O
How can we use the PRP to our advantage?
- You can deceive your opponent to force a delay in their response- performing a fake or dummy pass in rugby for example.
- Or using fake body language to fool your opponent such as standing as if you are going to do a short serve in badminton and then hitting the shuttle long.
What is anticipation?
- This is when a performer tries to pre-judge a stimulus i.e. trying to work out what is going to happen before it does.
How can a performer anticipate things?
- Using information from the environment in the form of signals/ cues from the opponent, this could include body language/ positioning.
- Information can also be learned prior to the game by researching the opposition or by learning through the actions of your opponent throughout the game (video footage of previous matches).
What are the 2 types of anticipation?
- Temporal anticipation
- Spatial
Temporal anticipation
- Predicting when it will happen (Time).
E.g. a football goalkeeper predicting when a player is going to shoot, or predicting the speed of the ball.
Spatial
- Predicting what/where a movement will happen.
E.g. a football goalkeeper predicting where the ball will go/ equivalent or type of pass.
