The generalized matching law was used to evaluate play selection (passing versus rushing) in professional football game situations defined by combinations of football-specific factors. Archival statistics were analyzed to determine whether play selection covaried with yards gained from passing and rushing plays, and whether the details of this relationship, as measured by the matching law's fitted parameters, varied systematically across game situations. The matching law accounted for substantial variance in play selection for several combinations of game situations, and statistically significant situation-interaction effects were found for bias, but not sensitivity. Follow up analyses revealed that, across game situations, play-selection bias effects were closely related to relative probability of a turnover (can be described in terms of punishment) and the relative yards-gained variance (which can be described in terms of variable-magnitude reinforcement schedules). These results bolster an operant-choice interpretation of football play selection; they reveal two separate aspects of play preference (generic matching versus bias); and provide a rare example of how face-valid effects in a domain of everyday interest may relate to a theoretically-important term of a laboratory-based quantitative model of choice.
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