Advance Cue Utilisation in Open Play Soccer

Patrick Clark

Perceptual Anticipation

• In sport, anticipation and perception are fundamental, related skills - Williams et al. (2002)

Anticipation is contingent on the perception of advance visual information from motion

- Farrow & Abernethy (2002)

• Advance Cue Utilisation Using advance information from an opponent’s movement to predict

outcomes - Williams (2000)

Expert-Novice Comparisons

• Useful for understanding nature of experts’ advantage - Abernethy et al. (2012)

Expert players demonstrate superior anticipatory and perceptual skill - Jackson & Mogan, (2007); Temporal Occlusion

• Film clips edited to display variable amounts of information

Experienced players better anticipate outcomes of penalties when clips cut before contact

- Williams & Burwitz (1993)

Standard Methodologies

• A means of identifying the location of beneficial advance cues -Diaz, Fajen & Phillips (2012).

Savelsbergh et al. (2002)

• Expert goalkeepers fixate longer on the kicking leg, non-kicking leg and ball

Novices fixate longer on the trunk, arms and hips

• Successful expert goalkeepers fixate longer on non-kicking leg - Savelsbergh et al. (2005)

Eye Tracking

Present Study

• Expanded investigation to open play

Incorporated procedures with demonstrable utility

Hypotheses

H1: Experienced soccer players would demonstrate superior anticipation

H2: Experts, intermediates and novices would differ in the areas of the display they fixated

Method

• Participants were 24 males differing in soccer experience (8 in each group)

Materials

• 48 film clips of two different football skills

32 Passes (16 high, 16 low) and 16 dribbles

Clips cut either:

o 120ms prior foot-ball contacto 40ms prior o At contact o 40ms post-contact

Anticipation Task

At occlusion, participants stated:

1) The skill executed by the display player (Pass or Dribble)

2) Ball Direction

3) (Passes only) Ball height

The SMI iView X™ Remote Eyetracking Device (RED)

ResultsAnticipation Performance

Novice

Intermediate

Experienced

55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100

Direction

Height

Skill

Fig. 1Mean percentage accuracy for each anticipatory response for each soccer experience group.

Anticipation Performance cont.

N.S. difference between experience groups across the anticipatory responses in combination (V = 0.34, F (6, 40) = 1.34, p = 0.26)

Sig. difference between experience groups in accuracy of anticipations of skill executed (F (2, 21) = 5, MSe = 36.24, p < .05)

Experienced players were sig. > accurate than novices (p <.05)

Experience groups sig. differed in accuracy across occlusions in combination (V = 0.66, F (8, 38) = 2.36, p <0.05)

Discriminant analysis suggested experienced & intermediate players > accurate on clips occluded pre-contact

Fixation Location

• N.S. difference between experience groups in display regions fixated (Λ = .275, F (20, 22) = 1, p = 0.5).

• Novices fixated the head (p<.05) and the shoulders (p<.05) significantly longer than experienced players

Kicking Leg Left Arm

Support for H1

Experienced players more often correctly anticipated skill executed

No difference across the required anticipatory responses combined Nor in ball direction and ball height considered separately

Contradictions of H1

Support for H2

Novices fixated the head and the shoulders longer relative to experienced players

No difference between groups in fixation duration at the ten display regions combined

No difference at the eight remaining display region considered separately

Contradictions of H2

Discussion

Discussion cont.

Limitations

• Skill of: 1) Display ‘players’ and 2) Participants

Improvements

• Alternative/additional response measures

• Incorporation of spatial occlusion trials as an adjunct procedure

Future Research

• ‘Shooting’ for goal in open play (from long and/or close range)

Conclusion

• Superiority of ‘experts’ extends to anticipating what opponent is going to do

• Experts* are better able to use cues occurring earlier during opponent’s movement

• Location of these cues also remains to be seen Unlikely to be the head or the shoulders

Extended investigation beyond the penalty

Presenting multiple skills interchanged tested ability to anticipate intentions

References

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