Pickup of Essential Kinematics Underpins Expert Perception of Movement Patterns

Abstract

In a series of 3 experiments, the authors examined the ability of badminton players of different skill levels (12 experts and 12 nonexperts) to anticipate the direction of badminton strokes. Participants viewed either film or point-light displays under a range of temporal or spatial occlusion conditions. World-class players were able to consistently pick up useful predictive information from the advance (precontact) kinematics of both the lower body and the racquet when the motion of those features was presented in isolation, whereas recreational players' use of the same information depended on the concurrent presence of linked segments. Participants' information pickup closely matched key biomechanical changes in the movement pattern being viewed, although, contrary to a common-coding view of perception and action (e.g., W. Prinz, 1997), some important differences were evident between the characteristics of the experts' movement prediction and those of expert movement production.

Visual span and change detection in soccer: An expertise study

“…First, Williams, Hodges, North, and Barton (2006) showed that it is rather specific relational information between certain key players that provide crucial information for superior recognition in soccer. Second, several studies provide evidence for the superiority of experts in picking up, for example, subtle kinematic cues when attempting to recognise and anticipate the outcome of an opponents action (e.g., Abernethy & Zawi, 2008;Huys et al, 2009;). …”

Expert players accurately detect an opponent’s movement intentions through sound alone.

“…This suggests that common populations of neurons can detect the relevant kinematic action based information (Cesari et al, 2014;Thoret et al, 2014;Young et al, 2013), recognize the action (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004) and use this information to predict the actor's intentions (Gallese & Goldman, 1998;Iacoboni, 2009;Iacoboni et al, 2005). In this context, motor expertise is crucial for picking up essential movement information (Abernethy & Zawi, 2007) and anticipating the player's action intention (Aglioti et al, 2008;Tomeo et al, 2012). Through practice, it is hypothesised that the processing of task-relevant kinematic patterns (observed, heard, and/or performed) of the action is enriched and consolidated (Gallese, 2000).…”

Anticipation in soccer: a systematic review

“…Among the studies conducted on soccer players, many attempt to distinguish the key skills for success in this sport and some findings have indicated several examples. These include superior ability in recognizing information through opponents' postural cues, thus anticipating forthcoming movements [5], faster and more precise pattern recognition in structured situations that are specific of the task at hand [6] and superior ability to more precisely foresee (within time constraints) the movements of teammates and opponents [7,8]. Furthermore, research has been conducted with the aim to demonstrate that more experienced players are more precise in anticipating the time and movements of opponents, teammates and the ball [9][10][11].…”