Differences in Decision-Making Behavior Between Elite and Amateur Team-Handball Players in a Near-Game Test Situation

Abstract

Athletic features distinguishing experts from non-experts in team sports are relevant for performance analyses, talent identification and successful training. In this respect, perceptual-cognitive factors like decision making have been proposed to be important predictor of talent but, however, assessing decision making in team sports remains a challenging endeavor. In particular, it is now known that decisions expressed by verbal reports or micro-movements in the laboratory differ from those actually made in on-field situations in play. To address this point, our study compared elite and amateur players’ decision-making behavior in a near-game test environment including sport-specific sensorimotor responses. Team-handball players (N = 44) were asked to respond as quickly as possible to representative, temporally occluded attack sequences in a team-handball specific defense environment on a contact plate system. Specifically, participants had to choose and perform the most appropriate out of four prespecified, defense response actions. The frequency of responses and decision time were used as dependent variables representing decision-making behavior. We found that elite players responded significantly more often with offensive responses (p < 0.05, odds ratios: 2.76–3.00) in left-handed attack sequences. Decision time decreased with increasing visual information, but no expertise effect was found. We suppose that expertise-related knowledge and processing of kinematic information led to distinct decision-making behavior between elite and amateur players, evoked in a domain-specific and near-game test setting. Results also indicate that the quality of a decision might be of higher relevance than the required time to decide. Findings illustrate application opportunities in the context of performance analyses and talent identification processes.

Elite Players Invest Additional Time for Making Better Embodied Choices

“…The participants in this study were part of a previous decision-making experiment (Hinz et al, 2022 ) in which attack sequences were presented with the temporal-occlusion paradigm instead, and with differing test instructions.…”

Entscheidungsleistung und selbstgeneriertes Wissen zu Mustern in der Handballverteidigung: ein Fall von „representational redescription“

“…Specifically, we present findings on the relationship between handball players' ability to explicitly detect a game-specific pattern and to initiate correct real-world motor responses in a 3:3 immersive defensive task. Previous research in team handball showed, on the one hand, a consensus on the superior decision making of more experienced players compared to less experienced players in adult (Magnaguagno & Hossner, 2020) and youth players (Hinz et al, 2022;Magnaguagno et al, 2022) and, on the other hand, a tendency that experts outperform their counterparts in pattern recall (Raab & Farrow, 2015) as well as pattern detection (Magnaguagno & Hossner, 2020). With respect to the latter, however, recent research on youth handball players revealed no relevant differences (Magnaguagno et al, 2022).…”

Training for “Worst-Case” Scenarios in Sidestepping: Unifying Strength and Conditioning and Perception–Action Approaches

“…Skilled athletes initiate their movements later, which increases the outcome accuracy and success as there is less susceptibility to deception and superior motor capacities enable them to tolerate the imposing demands [ 81 , 90 ]. Further, evidence suggests that skilled athletes seem to make better choices rather later, instead of earlier, when tested with representative task designs [ 88 , 91 , 92 ], indicating that the quality of a decision might be of higher relevance than the required time to decide [ 93 ]. This is in accordance with the speed–accuracy trade-off paradigm, suggesting that a more time-consuming evaluation of a situation can lead to higher success rates and fewer errors [ 88 , 91 , 92 , 94 , 95 ].…”

“…Further, evidence suggests that skilled athletes seem to make better choices rather later, instead of earlier, when tested with representative task designs [ 88 , 91 , 92 ], indicating that the quality of a decision might be of higher relevance than the required time to decide [ 93 ]. This is in accordance with the speed–accuracy trade-off paradigm, suggesting that a more time-consuming evaluation of a situation can lead to higher success rates and fewer errors [ 88 , 91 , 92 , 94 , 95 ]. However, even athletes with well-trained anticipation and decision-making skills may experience in situ scenarios where they cannot rely on those skills (i.e., due to obscured vision, an opponent’s use of deception and disguise, or stochastic ball bounce) and therefore experience “worst-case” scenarios.…”