Psych - Anticipation Skill Flashcards
How is anticipation described?
The process by which performers utilise advance info in order to co-ordinate consequential behaviour (Houlston + Lowes, 1993)
Why is anticipation important?
The ability to anticipate what an opponent is going to do next is crucial in sports, particularly where sig. time pressures exist (Williams + Jackson, 2019)
How do athletes anticipate?
- Pattern recognition
- Gaze behaviours
- Ability to recognise body language (more individual sports)
- probability alignment (what’s most likely to happen next)
What do the following terms refer to?
Transit time, Movement time, Latency time
Transit time - taken taken for (ball) to leave opponents (racket) and reach you
Movement time - time taken for yourself to move towards ball and hit it
Latency time - the ‘built in’ reaction time to make decision
When would an individual need to use anticipation in sports?
When transit time < (Movement time + Latency time)
- performer either has a big problem or has to anticipate!
Time constraints in sport evidence - Tennis
Roughly 0.5 seconds from when player contacts ball on serve to when receiver has to hit the ball
- added pressure from having to move to the ball as well (0.5s MT)
- MT + LT = 650ms > than transit of 500ms!
Time constraints in sport evidence - wheelchair tennis
- Ball transit time is roughly 1200ms
Do the players need to anticipate + read players serve if they can just rely on ball flight info?
- MT is longer due to wheelchair (900ms) + LT is roughly 160ms (combined this is still less than transit time)
- However study found that receivers still used postural + kinematic info + early ball flight to anticipate!
Time constraints in sport evidence - penalty kicks
Jackson (2022)
- ball transit time is roughly 425ms
- GK MT is 625ms and Lt is 160ms
- However GK had viewing time as player starts to run up (1400ms)
GK decision point is roughly 400ms BEFORE contact otherwise its too late + any extra info will not be worth it (e.g. placement of foot)
Evidence of anticipation from chronometric analysis (timing-type analysis)
Why is this type of analysis good?
- Allows researchers to observe interactions between the top players in their competitive environments (lab studies often are lower skilled players)
- helps identify relationships between key time constraints, response strategies + response outcomes
Evidence of anticipation from chronometric analysis (timing-type analysis)
What did the researchers generally conclude?
Muller + Abernethy (2012)
The performers total time to prepare + execute a striking skill usually exceeds the travel time of the object from A to B
- so therefore at least some of these movements need to take place before the contact
Evidence of anticipation from chronometric analysis (timing-type analysis)
2 small studies
- Expert cricketers - gross positioning movement before ball release (-110ms) then fine adjustments after (+145ms) - Muller + Abernethy, 2012
- High level squash players reacted quicker (+112ms) to their opponents shots than low level players (+363ms) - Howarth et al, 1984
How frequently do tennis players anticipate during matches?
Triolet et al, 2013
Huge number of anticipatory responses are after racket-ball contact
When taking into account latency time (RT)… anticipatory responses show they’re using pre-ball flight info
- anticipation occurred on around 6-13% of points
What constrains tennis player’s anticipation during matches?
Triolet et al, 2013
Most points are neutral rallies (not much anticipation + not much movement)
- respond 200ms after contact with 100% accuracy
During time-pressure rally (lands a bit short etc)
- tend to respond 100ms before contact but with 60% accuracy
Time pressure of opponent going to smash ball
- tend to move 280ms before contact but with 75% accuracy
Why would a higher time pressure lead to better accuracy?
Triolet et al, 2013
High time pressure = less need for disguise by opponent (so pretty obvious where they are going to go)
- this means better accuracy by receiver of where to go, however an ineffective response
What make’s experts better at this - is there a HARDWARE advantage?
How quickly could batters respond to deviations in ball flight?
McLeod (1987)
RT measured of 3 England batsmen in cricket…
- Over pitched = 100ms away from batter
- Good length = 160ms away (RT away)
- Short pitched = 400ms away
- they were able to adjust to deviations on ‘short’ deliveries but NOT on ‘good-length’ ones
What software processes underlie anticipations if its not a hardware advantage?
Top performers are able to read subtle differences in what opponents are doing which questions…
- what is info that players can use? are they aware of it, if so, can it enable training?
- when is the critical info available?
How can anticipation software processes be studied?
- Experimental paradigms - temporal occlusion (cutting a video so it stops before important info), spatial occlusion (showing full footage up to key point but removing body parts etc) and visual/ auditory manipulations
- Analysis of visual gaze
- Analysis of kinematics
- Verbal reports
- Video analysis of competitive interactions
List a positive + 2 negatives of evidence from verbal reports
+ive - can provide rich info about range of sources + associated strategies
-ive - not necessarily aware of what brain is attuned to
-ive - recall may be inaccurate, incomplete / biased
Verbal report of Nadal - what does he look for in opponents?
- saying it depends on opponent
- sometimes can’t read anything and you take ‘chance’, whereas other players he knows well and can read it
Doesn’t state directly whether its kinematics or action preferences he’s looking for
Evidence of experimental paradigms - temporal occlusion
High vs low skilled squash players watching videos whereby info available was systematically manipulated (had to say if shot was going short / long and left / right etc)
Results
Abernethy, 1990
- Novices did marginally better than 50% (chance level) = slightly read game
- Experts are much better than chance + increases as reaching ball-racket contact
- 70% correct even 160ms before contact)
Evidence of experimental paradigms - event occlusion
High skilled vs intermediate vs low skilled batsmen responding to varying swing bowler (inswinger vs outswinger and short vs full)
Explain further
Muller et al, 2006
Had to say whether bowler was an inswinger or outswinger and whether the depth of bowl was short or full
Vision occluded at back foot impact, front foot impact, ball release and no occlusion
- (event occlusion) - so video stopped at those time points as they are important
Questioned if batsmen can judge better than chance before ball-flight is available
Evidence of experimental paradigms - event occlusion
High skilled vs intermediate vs low skilled batsmen responding to varying swing bowler (inswinger vs outswinger and short vs full)
results
Delivery type…
- clear expertise effect pre-ball flight (above chance level even way before ball release - BFI and FFI)
- 70% accuracy when video stopped at ball release (still pre-ball flight info)
- low skilled WORSE than chance
Delivery length…
- expertise effect pre-ball flight (everyone was above chance level but experts better still)
Evidence of experimental paradigms - temporal occlusion
Experienced vs novice GKs in handball judging penalty throws 7m out - were they hard shot or a ‘lob’ shot
Results
Loffing + Hagemann, 2014
- Experienced GK were exceptionally good + get better at each of occlusion points (70% @ -160ms and 85% @ ball release)
- Novice GKs still above chance (50%) but not as well as experts
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion
What info sources are experts attuned to?
Explain a tennis study by Jackson + Mogan (2007)
Questioned if there is local (specific) / global (multiple) cues that are prpimary focus + would be good for novice players to focus on
- used spatial occlusion (removed) - lower body, arm + racket, ball + whole body scenarios
- players had to ‘read the serve’ - down T, at body, out wide
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion
Tennis study by Jackson + Mogan (2007) - Results
Reading a serve is a very difficult task to do (chance level of 33%)
- No occlusion - skilled players get about half right (better than chance level)
- Ball occlusion - fall to chance level
- Lower body - slightly worse than when ‘no occlusion’
- Arm + racket - above chance
- Whole body - similar to no occlusion
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion
Tennis study by Jackson + Mogan (2007) -
What inferences can be made from results?
Lower body occlusion - as there only arm + ball essentially = ball toss is important
Arm + racket occlusion - supports anticipation as above chance
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion
Tennis study by Jackson + Mogan (2007) -
Are experts aware of info they’re attuned to (with results)?
If yes - they should be able to describe the info to some degree + should be more confident for correct judgements than incorrect ones
- No occlusion - more confident on correct ones
- Ball occlusion - confidence drops susbtantially
- Arm + racket occlusion - confident drops substantially
- Lower body occlusion - confidence does not drop (nothing here aiding anticipation)
- Whole body occlusion (just ball toss + head) - confidence gets very low
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion
Are experts attuned to single or multiple sources of visual info? - handball penalty throw study removing parts of body
Results
Loffing + Hagemann, 2014
Compared to control, performance declines a fair bit when…
- remove ball and hand
- remove whole throwing arm
- remove whole upper body (can’t point to single cue declining performance here)
Performance is good when…
- just have upper body (lower body is irrelevant)
- just have throwing arm + ball (these are key focus areas)
Evidence of experimental paradigms - spatial occlusion / neutralisation
Are experts attuned to local or global sources of visual info? - tennis inside-out / crosscourt forehands neutralising parts of body in recreational players who were perceptually skilled vs unskilled
Results
Huys et al, 2009
- Neutralisation of several segments impaired the skilled group (trunk, arm+racket, legs)
- Their performance was more strongly correlated across different conditions (if did well in one condition, will do well in another)
- Therefore it is more global info not distributed
Constraints attunement hypothesis study - removing all background info, leaving only kinematic markers on joints as ‘point-lights’
Skilled badminton vs recreational players on serve direction
What were the predictions of this study?
Vicente + Wang, 1998
- Predicts that experts are more attuned to the kinematics constraints that identify the unfolding action
- If doing a throwing / striking action, biomechanical chain starts with lower body, to shoulders then arm + object (in terms of maximal displacement) so predict skilled players should have better performance for lower body in early occluded clips
Constraints attunement hypothesis study - removing all background info, leaving only kinematic markers on joints as ‘point-lights’
Skilled badminton vs recreational players on serve direction
Results
- Experts are highly attuned to substantial biomechanical difference + error numbers were higher for only point-light but skill difference still exists
- Experts error was lower for lower + upper body than for racket + shuttle occlusion
- Accuracy massively increased in seeing cues later on (arm + racket)
Visual gaze evidence - visual fixations of expert vs recreational GK in football
Recorded joystick response (direction) to penalty kick videos (wearing eye-trackers)
results
Savelsbergh et al, 2002
_ Experts focused more on head in early run up (1sec before)
- Experts focused more on non-kicking leg + ball just before contact (0.5sec before kick)
However looking + attending may be 2 separate things - why are they looking at ball when it’s just sat on spot?
Visual gaze evidence - visual fixations of expert vs recreational GK in football (on the field rather than in lab)
Results
Dicks et al, 2010
Expert GKs more strongly fixated o ball when trying to save real penalty kicks but why?
- Is it used as a timing cue? - can still use periphery for other info
Auditory evidence - 21 skilled volleyball players having to judge serves based on depth
Getting 1/4s of ball flight + seeing serve action
Results
Sors et al, 2018
- Just showing video (no sound) - they perform at chance level (very poor)
- Just playing audio - they get 63% correct = above chance level
Auditory evidence - experienced tennis players judging where a ball would bounce based on audio clips (deep or short)
results
Canal-Bruland et al (2018)
- When had louder sound - prediction was that it was a deeper shot
- Quieter sound = shorter shot
Probability assignment evidence - anticipation movement in various racket sports
Had players watch their matches back + assign a probability they attach to opponents shot (how likely they played that shot)
Results
Alain + Proteau, 1978
Amount of anticipation increased as probability they attached to opponents behaviour increased
Probability assignment evidence - Abernethy (2001) expert squash players occlusion study
What did they find about super early occlusions
In super early occlusions = before racket swing + postural info is available…
- there was a difference in expert vs less skilled players
- The patterns of play are causing this - position of player on court relative to ball
Evidence from verbal reports - male ATP tour players asked 2 questions
What were these questions?
Vernon, Farrow + Reid, 2018
- When returning did you consider contextual info (score, court-side, wind etc) to help predict an opponent serve?
- What role did kinematic info (ball toss, trunk rotation, head position etc) play in hlping predict a serve? Was it more important than contextual info + why?
Evidence from verbal reports - male ATP tour players asked 2 questions
What did the players say to the Q’s?
Various things were mentioned…
Contextual info - opponent scouting, court surface, player preferences
Situational probabilities - game score, match conditions, court position, player confidence
Movement kinematics - grip, backswing, ball toss, player signature
Probability assignment evidence - removing postural evidence to leave just contextual info
2 conditions…
1. Postural + position (normal video)
2. Animated - replaced players for cylinders (position only)
Results
Murphy, Jackson + Willaims, 2019
- Experts are better than novices in both conditions
- Gap reduces in animated video however still sig. expertise effect
Results show that novices don’t change much between 2 conditions so don’t gain much from player postural kinematics
Probability assignment evidence - Outcome sequences
Anticipation of volleyball shots (series of 4 lob or smash shots (with a pattern) and seeing how quickly players reacted to 5th shot in sequence (may or may not be consistent with sequence
Loffing, Stern + Hagemann, 2015
Skilled players response accuracy more strongly affected by the sequence
- If get lob, expectation that next one is lob
- The expectations are rapidly gained
When 5th shot is not in line with sequence, the accuracy dropped substantially for skilled players
