The influence of facial expressions on attack recognition and response behaviour in karate kumite

Abstract

Facial expressions play a crucial role in human daily life interactions, so it is possible that they contain relevant anticipatory cues. Therefore, we conducted two studies in karate kumite to analyse the influence of facial expressions on the attack recognition (study A) and on the response behaviour (study B). In study A, 10 karate athletes (age 14-26 years, national and international level) had to recognize temporally occluded karate attacks in 2 conditions (normal and blurred face of the attacker) and identify the upcoming attack (verbal reports). In study B, a natural fight was initiated with 12 karate athletes (age 15-32 years, national and international level) in 3 conditions: an attacker with a normal face, wearing a ski mask, and wearing a ski mask together with sunglasses. The measured parameters response quality and time for response were calculated applying the McNemar test (study A) and Friedman test (study B). Results of study A showed a significant improvement in the attack recognition in the blurred face condition compared to the normal face condition. In study B a significant improvement in time for response was observed in the ski mask and ski mask plus sunglasses conditions (r < 0.1). No significant difference for response quality was found in any of the three conditions. The results of our work indicate that the disguise of the attacker's face leads to a better attack recognition and response behaviour. We conclude that anticipatory cues in karate kumite context mainly lie in the attacker's movements and not in the attacker's face.

The perceptual – Cognitive skills of combat sports athletes: A systematic review

“…Nine studies analysed the perceptual -cognitive skills in combat sport by means of realistic paradigms where researchers issued participants with dynamic videos or static pictures within a laboratory setting. Specifically, the studies analysed the sports of savate (French boxing; Ripoll, Kerlirzin, Stein & Reine, 1995), boxing (Ottoboni, Russo & Tessari, 2015), karate (Babiloni, Marzano, Infarinato, Iacoboni, Rizza, Aschieri et al, 2010;Del Percio, Marzano, Tilgher, Fiore, Di Ciolo, Aschieri et al, 2007;Del Percio, Rossini, Iacoboni, Infarinato, Aschieri, Lino et al, 2008;Mori, Ohtani & Imanaka, 2002;Petri, Bandow, Salb & Witte, 2018;Williams &Elliott, 1999), andtaekwondo (Shi &Li. 2016).…”

The influence of auditory information on performance in table tennis

“…Studies with eye tracking showed that information intake occurred due to a visual pivot, which is often a central point on the body (often the trunk or the head) of the opponent, or a functional space between several athletes and the ball, as well as due to peripheral vision (Vater, Williams & Hossner, 2019). In combat sports, such as karate kumite, Petri, Bandow, Salb and Witte (2018) demonstrated that the head, thus facial expressions and movements of the eyes, did not reveal relevant information und also underlined the importance of peripheral vision for information intake and processing of relevant visual kinematic information. That dominance of visual information was also found in our studies.…”

Combat as an Interpersonal Synergy: An Ecological Dynamics Approach to Combat Sports

“…Contemporary understanding of how the behavior of one person influences that of another has been dominated by the cognitivist approach. This line of research focused mainly on the individual mind and how they infer what is going on in the minds of others using perceptual information generated in speech, movement postures, and/or facial expressions [15][16][17][18]. In this approach, understanding interpersonal interactions is underpinned by internal representations of the interactions.…”