Expert anticipation from deceptive action

Abstract

Expertise in sports enhances the ability to anticipate forthcoming events from the observation of a player's actions. In the present study, we investigated whether this ability is applicable to deceptive action. In three experiments, performance at anticipating the direction change of a running opponent was examined with experienced rugby players and novice counterparts. These experiments were conducted with reaction-time and temporal-occlusion tasks, in combination with eye movement recordings and the presentation of filmed actions and their point-light representations. The main finding was that the experienced players were superior to the novices in their anticipation of deceptive actions, although their performance was still impaired by the deception, in comparison with their anticipation of nondeceptive actions. We also found that the experienced players anticipated nondeceptive actions less accurately than the novices, suggesting that the players' expectations of deceptive actions worked negatively on their judgments of nondeceptive actions. The results obtained with the pointlight representations closely resembled those obtained with the filmed sequences, indicating that anticipation was based on the kinematics of the running action. These results are discussed in the context of recent developments in research on expertise and deception in sports.

Control over the processing of the opponent’s gaze direction in basketball experts

“…That is, the head fake had a similar impact (i.e., the size of the head-fake effect was not reduced) on the performance of basketball players, as compared to soccer players and nonathletes. This pattern of results supports previous studies showing that performance of expert athletes suffers under time pressure, when they are confronted with a deceptive action (Dicks et al 2010;Mori & Shimada, 2013;Ripoll et al 1995).…”

“…These show, for example, that soccer goalkeepers save fewer penalty kicks in deceptive trials than in non-deceptive trials (Mori & Shimada, 2013) and that French boxers produce more false alarms to a fake attack (Ripoll et al 1995). Thus, there is some evidence that the performance of expert athletes also suffers under time pressure when they are confronted with a deceptive action.…”

“…The impact of time pressure on expert performance in deception tasks has been considered in only a few studies (Dicks, Button, & Davids, 2010;Mori & Shimada, 2013;Ripoll, Kerlirzin, Stein, & Reine, 1995). These show, for example, that soccer goalkeepers save fewer penalty kicks in deceptive trials than in non-deceptive trials (Mori & Shimada, 2013) and that French boxers produce more false alarms to a fake attack (Ripoll et al 1995).…”

Humans are sensitive to attention control when predicting others’ actions

“…Observers of a soccer player are able to predict the kick direction before the footto-ball contact (24). Deception in rugby runners is detected above chance before the runner changes direction (19). More closely related to the present task, a competitive reaching study showed that preparatory cues (i.e., movements and postural configurations preceding the lift-off of the finger) give opponents an advantage (13).…”

“…For example, how one reaches for a Lego piece allows a partner to predict the intention to cooperate or compete (18). The kinematics of running reveals the intention to deceive a sports opponent (19). Observers are able to perceive the value of the poker hand in the arm kinematics of players (20).…”