Information underpinning anticipation of goal-directed throwing

Abstract

We identified the information used to anticipate throw direction in handball. In two experiments, we examined how anticipation performance is affected when the information from one of five body areas (right arm, shoulders, hips, trunk, or total throw side) was either neutralized or decoupled from the motion of other body segments. In the first experiment, performance was significantly reduced when information from the throwing arm was neutralized, irrespective of skill levels. Skilled participants were negatively affected when the shoulders, hips, and trunk were neutralized, whereas less-skilled participants showed trends toward improvement under identical conditions. In the second experiment, partially disrupting relative motion via decoupling was not enough to reduce the anticipation performance among skilled participants to chance levels, whereas less-skilled participants lost their ability to anticipate in three conditions. Our findings suggest that skilled and less-skilled participants employ different information extraction strategies, yet information from the throwing arm is critical to anticipation for both groups. The two experiments suggest that relative motion mediated by both the absolute displacement trajectories of individual marker locations and their relative timings are important in informing anticipation, irrespective of skill level.

Accuracy of Outcome Anticipation, But Not Gaze Behavior, Differs Against Left- and Right-Handed Penalties in Team-Handball Goalkeeping

“…Finally, even if the above limitations were perfectly solved it could still turn out that gaze strategies do not considerably differ against left- and right-handed opponents. Therefore, another approach could be to examine the potential differential contribution of left- vs. right-handed opponents' body regions (e.g., arms, shoulder, hips) to visual anticipation of their action intentions, for example, through the presentation of spatially manipulated penalties (Bourne et al, 2013 ; Loffing and Hagemann, 2014 ). Along with the specification of the regions from where athletes are likely to have most difficulties picking up anticipation-relevant information in left-handed actions, this could help to better understand left-right asymmetries in the prediction of action intentions in human social interaction as well as to develop appropriate perceptual training intervention.…”

“…Here we sought to examine whether hypothesized lower accuracy for the prediction of left- than right-handed action outcomes is associated with corresponding maladjustment in gaze behavior. We chose the 7-m penalty in team-handball as test situation because, among others, the goalkeepers' ability to anticipate a thrower's shot intention has been highlighted as one key feature for successful interception (e.g., Bideau et al, 2004 ; Cañal-Bruland and Schmidt, 2009 ; Schorer and Baker, 2009 ; Bourne et al, 2013 ; Loffing and Hagemann, 2014 ). In the experiment, we recorded team-handball goalkeepers' and non-goalkeepers' eye-movements while they watched videos of left- and right-handed 7-m penalties and predicted their directional outcome.…”

Motor Programs as Indicators of Penalty Direction in Soccer

“…His study found no differences in Visual Reaction Time between categories, but only Auditory Reaction. Bourne et al (2013) analyzing penalty in handball supports the hypothesis that the anatomical regions closest to the ball would be better informative for anticipation and Roca et al (2013) state that qualified soccer players, compared to less skilled players, make more precise anticipations and decisions due to quantitative differences in their perceptual and cognitive processes. This study originates from the theory of motive communication, a study previously carried out by Araújo, Caniçali, De-Bortoli, and De-Bortoli (2003) where a strong relationship was found between information sent by the attacker at the time of the penalty and the direction of the ball and it is based on the expectation of knowing if it is possible to decrease the penalty taker's advantage and increase the chances of the goalkeeper to save the penalty from the early identification of the direction of his shot.…”

Visual pattern of experienced volleyball players during the blocking action

“…La zona que comprende el brazo efector ha sido considerada como altamente informativa en diversas investigaciones realizadas en modalidades deportivas abiertas, ya que su oclusión o neutralización ha producido un descenso en la precisión tanto de expertos como de novatos (e.g. Ward, Williams, & Bennett, 2002;Huys et al, 2009;Bourne, Bennett, Hayes, Smeeton, & Williams, 2013). Concretamente la zona de CM también se ha destacado en otras investigaciones realizadas sobre la acción del bloqueo en voleibol (e.g.…”