Computer-Simulated Display to Advance the Understanding of Perceptual Motor Skills

Abstract

Computer-simulated displays, known as computer graphics animation or virtual environments, provide biological psychologists and behavioral neuroscientists with novel inspiration in the study of human behavior. This review discusses current research trends in the use of computer simulated displays for the assessment of human perceptual motor skills, particularly sports related behaviors. Two research areas of longstanding interest to biological psychologists are reviewed, i.e., biological motion perception and perception-action coupling. A brief discussion of relevant case studies is also provided. The effective use of computer-generated visual stimuli can provide new insights into standard research questions and it is likely to provide new research insights in the future. However, these displays may have some disadvantages in terms of reality, or a sense of presence, when attempting to simulate a real-world situation. Researchers who study human perceptual motor skills should never neglect the ecological validity of their experiments, but computer-simulated displays will doubtless become a powerful tool for the investigation of motor behaviors.

Soccer athletes are superior to non-athletes at perceiving soccer-specific and non-sport specific human biological motion

“…This task is recognized as a critical and fundamental ability of social relevance ( Troje, 2002 ), and is a very strong dynamic cue that has been used, among others (for a review see Troje, 2013 ), for collision avoidance ( Ouellette et al, 2009 ) or to highlight athlete expertise in sport science. Furthermore, biological motion studies have shown potential for the study of spatial characteristics of perception related to sport action ( Abernethy and Parker, 1989 ; Ward et al, 2002 ; Wright et al, 2011 ) and has allowed researchers to assess perception of sport action within a life-sized virtual environment using stereoscopic displays ( Bideau et al, 2010 ; Ida, 2012 ). The use of virtual stimuli gives the participant vital depth information and corresponds more closely to the players’ perspective and behavior in real-life environments.…”