Learning and Transfer of Visual Anticipation in Skilled Cricket ......Learning and Transfer of Visual Anticipation in Skilled Cricket Batsmen By John Brenton MHumMovSportSci (Research);

Learning and Transfer of Visual Anticipation in

Skilled Cricket Batsmen

By

John Brenton

MHumMovSportSci (Research); MSportCoach

This dissertation is presented for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sean Müller

Associate Supervisor: Dr. Alasdair Dempsey

School of Psychology and Exercise Science

Murdoch University

Perth, Western Australia

July 2018

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STUDENT DECLARATION

I, John Brenton, do hereby declare that:

a) Except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the

candidate alone;

b) The work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for

any other academic award;

c) The content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since

the official commencement date of the approved research program;

d) Ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed.

Signed: Date: July 19, 2018

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MANUSCRIPT DECLARATION

The co-authors of manuscript submitted as Chapter 2 “Is Visual-Perceptual or Motor

Expertise Critical for Expert Anticipation in Sport?” do hereby declare that:


candidate alone;



Name: Dr Sean Müller

Signed: Date: 2nd July 2018

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The co-authors of manuscript submitted as Chapter 3 “Discrimination of Visual

Anticipation in Skilled Cricket Batsmen” do hereby declare that:


candidate alone;



Name: Dr. Sean Müller


Name: Dr. Akshai Mansingh

Signed: Date: 14th June, 2018

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The co-authors of manuscript submitted as Chapter 4 “Visual-Perceptual Training

with Acquisition of the Observed Motor Pattern Contributes to Greater Improvement of

Visual Anticipation” do hereby declare that:


candidate alone;



Name: Dr. Sean Müller


Name: Dr. Alasdair Dempsey


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The co-authors of manuscript submitted as Chapter 5 “Visual-perceptual training with

acquisition of the observed motor pattern improves anticipation and benefits batting average

in emerging expert batsmen.” do hereby declare that:


candidate alone;





Name: Dr Allen Gregg Harbaugh

Signed: Date: 2nd July, 2018

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The co-authors of manuscript submitted as Chapter 6 “Automated Vision Occlusion-

Timing Instrument for Perception-Action Research” do hereby declare that:


candidate alone;





Name: Mr. Robbie Rhodes

Signed: Date: 21st June 2018

Name: Mr. Brad Finch

Signed: Date: 19th June 2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sincere thanks are expressed to Murdoch University for supporting this PhD research

with an APA Scholarship, without which the study would not have been possible. Special

thanks also to the Murdoch University School of Psychology and Exercise Science for your

financial assistance to allow undertaking of the PhD research. Finally, a big thankyou to

Murdoch University for the awarding of a Graduate Research Grant for assistance with travel

expenses to NASPSPA Conference – San Diego June 2017.

I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to some special members of my

family, in particular my Aunty Rhonda McIlwain whose departing wish was I complete my

PhD, well Aunty R it is done! To my four daughters Olivia, Emily, Samantha and Nicola, I

know you have been confused and hurt at times during the undertaking of this project

however I can assure you the benefits of such a tough decision will flow into all our lives in

the years to come. To my Mum and Dad, thanks for your unconditional love and support

throughout some turbulent earlier years, hopefully you are looking down from above with a

smile on your face! Thanks also to my old friends, and the new ones I have made since

moving to Perth for the incredible support you have given me throughout this exciting,

challenging and busy time. Thank you also to all of the academic staff and post-graduate

students I have had the pleasure of meeting and studying with, thanks for keeping me young

at heart. It has been a privilege to be your representative on the School Board over the last

few years. Without your belief, counsel and humour, finishing this PhD thesis would have

been much more demanding, so thanks to everyone who helped me to maintain a degree of

sanity and manageability during the years of endeavour. In particular I would like to thank

Nathan, Aaron, Nikky, Jack, Shaun, Kieran, Khaya, Brittany, Faizal, Liam, Nardine,

Michelle, Mitch, and especially Karen, Min and Behnaz for making my time in the office at

Murdoch an extremely enjoyable one. Best wishes to you all in your future endeavours!

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On the professional front, I would like to thank the following for providing support

during this PhD research. Dr. Akshai Mansingh, Board Member Jamaica and West Indies

Cricket for your invitation to, and hospitality in, Jamaica where the vital first experiment in

my thesis was performed. It was an amazing few days and I look forward to working with

you again in future. To the members of the Western Australian Cricket Association High

Performance Unit, in particular Morag Croser, thank you for your support and promotion of

my PhD research at the Premier Cricket Competition level, together with Luke Wimbridge at

Southern Cricket for his help in ‘opening doors’ with Premier cricket clubs and coaches. The

research would not have happened without the fantastic welcoming and backing from

Committees, Players and Coaching Staff of the Fremantle, Melville, Perth, Claremont -

Nedlands and Joondalup Cricket Clubs who allowed access during the playing seasons for

this PhD research. A big thankyou to Mr. Justin Langer OAM, Mr Geoff Marsh and Mr

Wayne Andrews and the WACA Cricket Squad for providing access to your professional

players as part of this PhD research, access to this quality of research participant is rare and I

thank you all for the trust you displayed by inviting me into the WACA family for a period of

time. The results we were able to obtain from working with your athletes helped to greatly

advance the knowledge in the field, knowledge which we are now able to return to you in the

form of leading edge training. Special thanks goes to the participants for their professionalism

and flexibility during the periods of data collection ensuring that this process was able to be

undertaken effectively and efficiently. Last but not least, a special thank you to Ms Heidi

Spicer, Mr Brad Finch, Robert Rhodes and Mark Coles at B3 Electronics in Perth for your

invaluable knowledge, time and assistance with the construction of our world-leading

occlusion timing equipment which has raised the bar in both reliability and accuracy for

occlusion laboratory and field testing.

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In addition, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my co-supervisor Dr

Alasdair Dempsey for your invaluable contributions to this PhD research and it has been a

pleasure to work with you over my Masters and PhD studies. I wish you well in all your

future projects and it would be a pleasure to work with you again in the future.

Finally, a massive thankyou to Dr Sean Muller, who has again proven to be a fantastic

educator, leader, mentor and supporter throughout the duration of this PhD research. Sean it

has been a busy and challenging few years. It has been a real pleasure to work with you, I

could not have chosen a better person to further expand my interest and knowledge in the

exciting world of research. I sincerely hope we can continue to build on the solid partnership

and friendship we have formed over the last four years and I look forward to working with

you again in the future.

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LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS RELEVANT TO THE THESIS

MANUSCRIPTS

Chapter 2

Brenton, J., & Müller, S. (2018). Is visual-perceptual or motor expertise critical for expert

anticipation in sport? Manuscript submitted for publication.

Chapter 3

Brenton, J., Müller, S. & Mansingh, A. (2016). Discrimination of visual anticipation in

skilled cricket batsmen. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 28, 483-488.

doi:10.1080/10413200.2016.1162225

Chapter4

Brenton, J., Müller, S., & Dempsey, A. (2018). Visual-perceptual training with acquisition of

the observed motor pattern contributes to greater improvement of visual anticipation.

Manuscript submitted for publication.

Chapter 5

Brenton, J., & Müller, S. (2018). Visual-perceptual training with acquisition of the observed

motor pattern improves anticipation and benefits batting average in emerging expert

batsmen. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Chapter 6

Brenton, J., Müller, S., Rhodes, R., & Finch, B. (2018). Automated vision occlusion-timing

instrument for perception-action research. Behavior Research Methods, 50, 228-235.

doi:10.3758/s13428-017-0864-z

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ABSTRACTS

Brenton, J., Müller, S., & Dempsey, A. (2017). Training and transfer of visual anticipation in

skilled cricket batsmen (Supplemental material). Journal of Sport and Exercise

Psychology, 39, 117.

PRESENTATIONS

Brenton, J. (2015, July). Learning and transfer of visual anticipation in skilled cricket

batsmen [PowerPoint slides]. Confirmation of PhD candidature presented to an expert

reader, academics and post-graduate students from Murdoch University.

Brenton, J., Müller, S, & Dempsey, A. (2017, June). Training and transfer of visual

anticipation in skilled cricket batsmen. North American Society for the Psychology of

Sport and Physical Activity Oral Conference Presentation, San Diego California.

Brenton, J. (2017, July). Training and transfer of visual anticipation in elite cricket batsmen

[PowerPoint slides]. Presentation to High Performance Staff at Western Australian

Cricket Association.

Brenton, J. (2017, October). Training and transfer of visual anticipation in elite cricket

batsmen [PowerPoint slides]. Presentation to Mr. Justin Langer, Head Coach Western

Australian Cricket Association.

Brenton, J. (June, 2018). Learning and transfer of visual anticipation in skilled cricket

batsmen [PowerPoint slides]. PhD Pre-Submission Presentation to academics and

post-graduate students from Murdoch University

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Student Declaration……………………………………………………………………………2

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………....8

List of Publications and Presentations Relevant to Thesis………………………………...…11

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………….13

List of Tables.....................................................................................................................…...18

List of Figures………….…………………………………………………………………….18

Summary of Research……………………………………………………………………......21

Structure of Thesis………………………………………………………………………..….23

CHAPTER 1

Introduction…………………………………………….…………………………………...24

References……………………………………………………………………………………29

CHAPTER 2………………………………………………………………………………...34

Literature Review Manuscript: Is Visual-Perceptual or Motor Expertise Critical for

Expert Anticipation in Sport?

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………34

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..35

Psychological theories of perceptual-motor behaviour……………………………………....37

Classification of studies that have investigated visual and motor contributions to visual

anticipation in sport ………………………………………………………………………….41

Behavioural evidence of visual and motor contributions to the performance of visual

anticipation in sport ……………………………………………………………………….....44

Behavioural evidence of visual and motor contributions to learning and transfer of visual

anticipation in sport…………………………………………………………………………..47

Future research and summary……………….………………….……………………………51

References…………………………………………………….…………………..………….53

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CHAPTER 3………………………………………………………………………………...59

Experiment 1 Manuscript: Discrimination of Visual Anticipation in Skilled Cricket

Batsmen

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………....59

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..60

Method……………………………………………………………………………………….61

Participants…………………………………………………………….…………………......61

Materials and Procedure……………………………………………………………………...62

Analysis and Results…………………………………………..………………………….….63

Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………64

Practical Application, Conclusion and Future Research…………………………………..…66

References……………………………………………………………………………………68

CHAPTER 4………………………………………………………………………………...70

Experiment 2 Manuscript: Visual-Perceptual Training with Acquisition of the

Observed Motor Pattern Contributes to Greater Improvement of Visual Anticipation

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………70

Significance Statement……………………………………………………………………….71

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..72

Visual and motor contributions to anticipation…………………………………..…………..72

Motor simulation in anticipation……………………………………………………………..74

Methodologies and expert anticipation………………………………………………………75

Evidence of visual and motor contributions to anticipation…………………………………76

Experiment 1…………………………………………………………………………………80

Method…………………………………………………………………………………….....80

Participants………………………………………………………………….……….……….80

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Experimental Design and Procedures……………………………….……………………….81

Test procedures………………………………………………………...…………………….82

Training procedures………………………………………………………………………….84

Dependent Measures and Statistical Analyses……………………………………………….86

Results and Discussion……………………………………………………………………….88

Pre- and post-tests………………………………………………………..……………….….88

Transfer tests…………………………………………………………………………………90

Performance in training sessions……………………………………………………………..92

Experiment 2………………………………………………………………………...……….94

Method…………………………………………………………………………………….....94

Participants………………………………………….…………………………………..……94

Experimental Design and Procedures………………………………………………………..95

Dependent Measures and Statistical Analyses……………………………………………….95

Results and Discussion……………………………………………………………………….96

Pre- and post-tests……………………………………………………………………………96

Transfer tests…………………………………………………………………………………97

Performance in training sessions……………………………………………………………..98

General Discussion…………………………………………………………………………...99

Visual and motor contributions to learning of anticipation…………………………………100

Visual and motor contributions to transfer of anticipation……………………………….…101

Advancement of theoretical knowledge…………………………………………………….103

Practical Application, Conclusion and Future Research……………………………………105

References………………………………………………………………….……………….108

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CHAPTER 5………………………………………..……………………………………...118

Experiment 3 Manuscript: Visual-perceptual training with acquisition of the observed

motor pattern improves anticipation and benefits runs scored in emerging expert

batsmen

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..118

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………120

Method.……………………………………………………………………………………..123

Results……………………………………………………………………………………....128

Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………..132

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..136

Practical Implications……………………………………………………………………….136

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………....136

Conflict of Interest………………………………………………………………………….136

References…………………………………………………………………………………..137

Supplementary Figures……………………………………………………………………..141

CHAPTER 6…………………………………………………………………………..…...143

Manuscript: Automated Vision Occlusion Timing Instrument for Perception-Action

Research

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..143

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………144

Method………………………………………………………………………..………….…147

Participants………………………………………………………………………………….147

Instruments………………………………………………………………………………….149

Procedure.…………………………………………………………………………………..153

Results………………………………………………………………………………………153

Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………..154

Summary…………………………………………………………………………………....158

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References…………………………………………………………………………………..159

CHAPTER 7…………………………………………………………………………….…162

Conclusions, Implications, Limitations and Future Research..……………………………..162

Expertise Implications: ‘Having all the time in the world’…………………….……………163

Theoretical Implications…………………………………………………………………….164

Applied Implications………………………………………………………………………..167

Limitations and Future Research……………………………………………………………169

Summary……………………………………………………………………………………170

References…………………………………………………………………………………..171

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LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 2

Table 1. Classification of studies that have investigated visual and motor contributions to

anticipation…………………………………………………………………………………...43

Chapter 4

Table 1. Experiment 1 Pre-Post-Test chance comparison t-tests for experimental groups...115

Table 2. Experiment 1 Transfer test chance comparison t-tests for experimental groups….116

Table 3. Experiment 2 Pre-Post-Test chance comparison t-tests…………………………..117

Table 4. Experiment 2 Transfer test chance comparison t-tests…………………………....117

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 3

Figure 1. Percent accuracy for overall ball types combined for the Test and First Class group

(highly skilled), senior club group (elite club), and representative group (elite youth) relative

to temporal occlusion conditions……………………………………………………………..64

Chapter 4

Figure 1(a). Still image of fast bowler ………………………………………………….....82

Figure 1(b). Still image of slow bowler…………………………………………….……….82

Figure 1(c). Point-light display image of fast bowler………………………………….........82

Figure 2. Experimental set-up for video-based occlusion tests and motor practice of

bowling…………………………………………………………………………………….....84

Figure 3. Mean accuracy percentage for visual-perceptual, visuomotor and control groups in

relation to temporal occlusion conditions and pre-post-test phases……………………….....89

Figure 4. Mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental groups across

temporal occlusion conditions for the fast (a) and slow (b) bowler transfer tests……………91

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Figure 5. Performance curve for mean percentage prediction accuracy for the intervention

groups at the ball release temporal occlusion condition and mean motor pattern reproduction

for the visuomotor group relative to training sessions……………………………………….93

Figure 6. Mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the visuomotor interference training

group across pre-post-test phases and temporal occlusion conditions…………………….…96


group across temporal occlusion conditions for the fast and slow bowler transfer

tests…………………………………………………………………………………………...98

Figure 8. Performance curve for mean percentage prediction accuracy at the ball release

temporal occlusion condition and mean motor pattern reproduction for the visuomotor

interference group relative to training sessions………………………………………………99

Chapter 5

Fig.1. Supplement. Still image example of point-light display of the fast bowler at the time

of ball release……………………………………………………………………………….141

Fig.2. Supplement. Still images of components across temporal sequence of the bowling

action. Video images are provided to allow ease of interpretation…………………………142

Fig.3. Mean overall percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental groups across

temporal occlusion conditions for pre- and post-test phases. Horizontal line indicates

guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above guessing level. Error bars

indicate standard deviation…………………………………………………………………128

Fig.4. Mean overall percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental groups across

temporal occlusion conditions for the fast (a) and slow (b) bowler transfer tests. Horizontal

line indicates guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above guessing level.

Error bars indicate standard deviation………………………………………………..129 - 130

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Fig.5. Performance curve for percentage prediction accuracy for the visuomotor group at the

ball release temporal occlusion condition (response) and motor pattern reproduction accuracy

for the visuomotor group relative to training sessions. Note, session one involves video

training and sessions two to eight involve point-light display training……………………..131

Chapter 6

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of the instrument set-up for one of the tests that was conducted

with a cricket bowler…………………………………………………………………….….148

Figure 2. Transmitter tower lasers mounted vertically on a stand……………………..…..149

Figure 3. The unit that controls the laser curtain, light emitting diode and wireless driver

controller (connected to PLATO spectacles driver)………………………………………..150

Figure 4. The driver that controls the vision occlusion spectacles through wireless

communication with the control unit……………………………..………………………...152

Figure 5. Cumulative instrument time delays for laser curtain, control unit, light emitting

diode, driver controller and vision occlusion spectacles……………………………………157

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SUMMARY OF RESEARCH

This PhD thesis investigated whether visual-perceptual training or visual-perceptual

training with acquisition of the observed motor pattern was the most effective to improve

visual anticipation. Experiment 1 validated a temporal occlusion video test to discriminate

fine-grained differences in visual anticipation between groups of skilled cricket batsmen,

which was used in testing phases of subsequent experiments. Experiment 2 recruited club

cricket batsmen, who were randomised into three groups: (i) visual-perceptual training, (ii)

visual-perceptual training with motor practice of the observed bowler’s action, and (iii)

control group that receiving no training. Results indicated both training groups, but not the

control group, significantly improved anticipation of ball types from the bowler’s action

across pre-to-post-tests. However, only visual-perceptual training with acquisition of the

observed bowler’s action transferred to superior anticipation against different bowlers.

Findings supported common-coding theory, which predicts that visual and motor experience

influence visual-perception (anticipation). To probe the contribution of motor experience, a

further experiment was conducted to interfere with acquisition of the motor pattern. Results

indicated that interfering with motor pattern acquisition inhibited learning and transfer of

anticipation, confirming the importance of motor experience to improved anticipation.

Experiment 3 applied visual-perceptual-motor pattern training to a group of emerging expert

state cricket batsmen. Results indicated that the intervention group, but not the control group,

significantly improved their anticipation across pre-post-transfer tests, again supporting the

predictions of common-coding theory. Overall, these findings advanced theoretical

knowledge of the contributions to visual and motor experience to anticipation, as well as

providing practical applications for skill acquisition specialists and coaches to assist

designing practice sessions to improve visual anticipation skill. Furthermore, a new

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instrument was developed to automatically trigger occlusion glasses that could in future be

used to assess improvements in anticipation to field settings of batting.

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STRUCTURE OF THESIS

This thesis is structured as follows: (a) chapter one presents a general introduction to

the topic of expert striking skill as it relates to the discipline of sport expertise and skill

learning, with a particular focus on common-coding theory predictions of learning and

transfer of visual anticipation skill, (b) chapter two presents a review of relevant literature

relative to visual and motor experience contributions to expert visual anticipation in

manuscript format under review in Applied Cognitive Psychology, (c) chapter three outlines

experimental research conducted in manuscript format of an article published in Journal of

Applied Sport Psychology (2016)[Note: this is a research note that has specific journal

guidelines in terms of manuscript length and word count, see author guidelines:

https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uasp20], (d) chapter four describes experimental work

conducted in manuscript format of an article currently under review for publication in Journal

of Experimental Psychology: Applied, (e) chapter five describes experimental research

conducted in manuscript format submitted for publication in Journal of Science and Medicine

in Sport [Note, there are strict author guidelines for the manuscript, e.g., word count, see:

https://www.jsams.org/. Manuscript has been mostly reformatted to APA to preserve what

has been submitted for publication], (f) chapter six outlines experimental work conducted in

manuscript format published in Behavior Research Methods (2018), and (g) chapter seven

discusses conclusions and suggestions for future research resulting from the experimental

work carried out within the thesis. Literature sources cited in the thesis follow at completion

of relevant chapters as this thesis has been written in specific journal publication format.

Writing and referencing of the thesis has adhered to accepted structure in the field of Motor

Control and Learning, being The Publication Manual of the American Psychological

Association (6th Edition) (American Psychological Association [APA], 2010). Due to the

foregoing structure of the thesis there is unavoidable repetition of content and references.

https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uasp20

https://www.jsams.org/

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The study of expertise and skill learning has been conducted in multiple domains to

understand the factors that differentiate superior expert performance from less skilled

performance, with a view to then guide learning and transfer programs across the skill

continuum (Ericsson, 2018). For example, the perceptual-cognitive capability of chess grand

masters (Chase & Simon, 1973), military personnel (Williams, Ericcson, Ward, & Eccles,

2008) and finger print identification in law enforcement officers (Thompson, Tangen, &

McCarthy, 2013) are some domains that have been studied in an attempt to unlock key

factors of expert performance. In relation to sport, which is the focus of this thesis,

investigation of expertise and skill learning has received heightened interest in the past ten

years with several books written in an attempt to disseminate empirical findings to scientists,

coaches and sports science support staff (see Baker, Cobley, Schorer, & Wattie, 2017; Baker

& Farrow, 2015; Farrow, Baker, & MacMahon, 2013). This increased interest in sport

expertise and skill learning is likely due to multiple factors related to the aura of how athletes

perform their skills under extreme conditions offering a unique insight into how the brain

processes and plans action to achieve the skill goal (Zhao, Lu, Jaquess, & Zhou, 2018).

What is impressive about expert players in sport is they are able to execute visual-

perceptual-motor skills under extreme time constraints with an absence of appearing to be

hurried, but give the impression of having ‘all the time in the world’ (Abernethy, Farrow, &

Mann, 2018; Bartlett, 1947; Williams, Ford, Hodges, & Ward, 2018). These severe time

constraints are encountered in fast-ball sports such as badminton, beach volleyball, soccer,

cricket, baseball, and tennis, to name a few (Cañal-Bruland, Mooren, & Savelsbergh, 2011;

Dicks, Davids, & Button, 2010). In such sports, the object flight time is significantly less than

the combined visual reaction and movement times of the performer (e.g., cricket batsman)

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indicating that the performer cannot rely solely upon object flight information alone to guide

their actions (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). In order to consistently succeed in achieving

the skill goal under such severe constraints, performers in fast-ball sports need to be able to

anticipate their opponent’s intentions (Mann, Schaefers, & Cañal-Bruland, 2014; Müller &

Abernethy, 2012).

Visual anticipation is well recognised as a critical factor of expertise in sport (Müller

& Abernethy, 2012). Visual anticipation has been defined as the pick-up of visual cues from

an opponent’s kinematics in order to predict future object location and guide component

motor responses to achieve the skill goal (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). The process of

visual anticipation is heavily reliant on identification and use of advance cues, for example,

visual information extracted from the kinematics of an opponent such as the ball and bowling

hand position used by a cricket bowler to impart swing on the ball. Several performance

studies have been conducted and reported that expert players have superior visual anticipation

skill in comparison to less skilled players (e.g., Abernethy & Russell, 1987; Abernethy, 1990;

Müller, Abernethy & Farrow, 2006; Paull & Glencross, 1997; Rowe, Horswill, Kronvall-

Parkinson, Poulter, & McKenna, 2009). This superior capability to pick-up advance

information allows experts to gain time to predict and plan their actions resulting in more

time than is available purely based upon object flight, to respond successfully to achieve the

motor skill goal. Knowing how experts use visual cues to deal with extreme time constraints

presents useful information to design empirical investigations to develop visual anticipation

skill in club and emerging expert athletes, which is of high interest to sport scientists, skill

acquisition specialists and sports coaches alike.

Much less scientific evidence exists about how to facilitate learning of visual

anticipation skill and how any improvements transfer to different contexts (Abernethy et al.,

2018; Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). This is likely because a sufficient pool of knowledge

26

was required to justify what the important factors of anticipation are that should be trained

and the logistical difficulties associated with running an intervention study are more

demanding than performance studies (Müller, Brenton, & Rosalie, 2015). The majority of

existing knowledge on how to train visual anticipation have been focused upon novices and

intermediate skilled participants (e.g., Farrow & Abernethy, 2002; Smeeton, Williams,

Hodges, & Ward, 2005; Williams, Ward, Smeeton, & Allen, 2004), with significantly less

evidence of improvement of the critical skill of anticipation in skilled club, emerging expert,

or expert athletes (e.g.,Mann, Scheafers & Cañal-Bruland, 2014; Hopwood, Mann, Farrow,

& Nielsen, 2011). This is concerning as high performance units within sports organisations

are committed to fast-tracking talent identified and emerging expert athletes into genuine

expert performers in order to justify investment of time and financial resources allocated in

their athlete development programs (Williams et al., 2018).

The lack of evidence on how to improve anticipation can limit the available options

for athletes to improve visual anticipation, which may result in the use of techniques such as

optometry-based visual training programs that present only a familiarity or placebo effect

(see Wood & Abernethy, 1997). Accordingly, it has been suggested that future studies that

aim to investigate ways to improve visual-perceptual-motor skill should focus on the

following criteria: (i) factors that discriminate visual-perceptual-motor expertise (e.g.,

anticipation), (ii) demonstrate improvement in that factor (e.g., anticipation) through training,

and (iii) determine whether improvement in the factor through training can transfer to

enhanced on-field performance (Hadlow, Panchuk, Mann, Portus, & Abernethy, 2018).

Therefore, studies of how to improve visual anticipation are necessary as they will address

current gaps in the skill learning literature, but these studies need to adhere to the foregoing

criteria. The outcomes of training studies will be highly beneficial to sports teams and

27

organisations to enable implementation of strategies within their programs to accelerate

development of club and emerging expert athletes.

Whether focus is upon investigation of performance or learning or transfer of visual

anticipation, research questions related to these topics need to be underpinned by a theoretical

framework (Williams & Ericsson, 2005; Williams, Ford, Eccles, & Ward, 2011). Theory

driven research questions probe underlying mechanisms of visual anticipation related to

behavioural outcomes of the capability to predict above guessing level (Abernethy et al.,

2018; Araújo & Davids, 2015; Giblin, Farrow, Reid, Ball, & Abernethy, 2015; Williams et

al., 2011). For example, the predictions of common-coding theory (Prinz, 1997), related to

visual and motor experience, are suitable for investigation of the underlying mechanism

related to research questions of learning and transfer of visual anticipation skill. This is

because common-coding theory predicts that visual and motor information can bi-

directionally influence visual-perceptual-motor skill, which inherently includes visual

anticipation (Abernethy et al., 2018; Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). Accordingly, visual

experience to advance kinematic cues such as a bowler’s action and motor experience such as

in the reproduction of the observed bowler’s action can be manipulated to test the predictions

of common-coding theory. The observed benefits to anticipation accuracy (outcome) provide

an indication of the mechanism that facilitates (or accelerates) the development of superior

anticipation. This mechanistic approach, first, contributes to a general understanding of how

the brain processes visual and motor information for action, and second, provides strong

evidence to justify application of the findings by coaches to train the mechanism that

underpins skill learning, rather than focus upon factors that may only show a familiarity or

placebo effect.

The rationale for experimental work conducted in this thesis is threefold: (i) to extend

theoretical understanding of whether training visual and motor experience benefits greater

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improvement in visual anticipation, which will further extend knowledge of how visual

anticipation can be improved and accelerated, (ii) to use the most beneficial method of

training visual anticipation to develop this skill in emerging expert athletes, and (iii) to extend

understanding of learning and transfer of visual anticipation. The exemplar sport on which

experimental work will be conducted is the fast-ball sport of cricket batting. In order to

systematically address the gap in the literature related to learning and transfer of visual

anticipation, specifically with club and emerging expert athletes, the following has been

done. First, the aim of Experiment 1 (Chapter 3) was to determine whether a sports-specific

temporal occlusion test with a motor response had the sensitivity to discriminate between

fine-grained levels of expertise including expert, elite youth (emerging expert) and club

cricket batsmen. This additional validation of a frequently used method provides further

justification for its use as pre-post-transfer-tests of theoretical (Experiment 2: Chapter 4) and

applied (Experiment 3: Chapter 5) studies in this thesis. Second, Experiment 2 (Chapter 4)

proceeded to systematically manipulate visual and motor experience to discover which

contributes most to improvement of learning and transfer of visual anticipation in club cricket

batsmen. Third, Experiment 3 (Chapter 5) used the most effective training method from

Experiment 2 to improve anticipation in emerging expert cricket batsmen. In addition, a

match statistic was compared to explore benefits of the intervention to competition

performance. Fourth, an instrument was developed that simplifies the process of creating

more reliable field-based occlusion testing protocol, which can be used in future research to

design in-situ sports-specific tests of anticipation. Collectively, this thesis contributes to scant

contributions pertaining to learning and transfer in the sport expertise and skill learning

literature.

29

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34

CHAPTER 2

Is Visual-Perceptual or Motor Expertise Critical for Expert Anticipation in Sport?

Abstract

A prominent topic is whether visual or motor expertise makes greater contribution to expert

visual anticipation in sport. This stems from psychological theories, such as common-coding

theory, which predicts perception and action can inform each other in a bi-directional

manner. This paper reviews the literature that has investigated visual and motor expertise

contributions to expert visual anticipation in sport. First, psychological theories are discussed

that predict visual and motor contributions to perceptual-motor behaviour. Second,

classifications of motor skills and studies are presented to evaluate the literature reviewed.

Third, literature is reviewed with reference to performance, learning and transfer of visual

anticipation, which are all vital for successful sports performance. The review aims to

stimulate thought about mechanisms underpinning visual and motor expertise relative to

performance, learning and transfer of anticipation skill, which can better guide the

practitioner to improve skill.

Keywords: vision, motor, expertise, anticipation, common-coding theory, sport

35

Is Visual-Perceptual or Motor Expertise Critical for Expert Anticipation in Sport?

The 2017 Major League Baseball season has seen a record number of home runs

posted throughout the regular and post seasons. How is it that these elite sports people

continually produce performances that reveal astonishing skill and precise timing of body

movements meanwhile captivating sports people with lesser capability, spectators and sports

science researchers alike? Sport expertise researchers have compared experts and less skilled

players in an effort to quantify factors that differentiate these performers in order to attempt

to provide an explanation of exceptional sports performance (Loffing & Cañal-Bruland,

2017). This expert versus less skilled paradigm has been used predominantly in striking

sports such as tennis, baseball, cricket, badminton, squash, and field hockey, but also in open-

field play sports such as soccer and volleyball. It is now well established that the capability of

a performer (e.g., baseball or cricket batsman) to anticipate an opponent’s actions (e.g.,

baseball pitcher or cricket bowler) is a critical factor of expertise in sport performance

(Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017; Williams, Ford, Eccles, & Ward, 2011).

Research has progressed to investigate whether it is visual expertise, motor response

expertise, acquisition of the observed motor pattern, or combinations of these that contribute

to superior anticipation in sport (Hodges, 2017). This is relevant first, because it contributes

to theoretical knowledge of the key factor(s) that underpin expert anticipation. For example,

is the capability to pick-up visual cues from an opponent’s action the critical factor, rather

than execution of a motor response to the cues an opponent presents? Alternatively, is it the

capability to pick-up visual cues and execute the motor response that is critical? Furthermore,

does acquisition of the motor pattern that one observes contribute to expert anticipation? In

addition to furthering theoretical knowledge of expert anticipation in sport, it can advance

psychological theory of how the brain uses visual information to guide action. Second,

through advancement of theoretical knowledge, a strong foundation can be provided for the

36

practitioner to design intervention programs to maximise improvement of expert anticipation

across the skill continuum, as well as facilitate transfer to different contexts. Again,

application may not be limited to practitioners in sport, but also valuable to training in

clinical, education, and military settings, to name a few.

Visual anticipation is defined as the capability of the performer to use information

from their immediate environment to predict an opponent’s action and respond with an action

to achieve the motor skill goal such as to strike a baseball (Müller & Abernethy, 2012).

Specifically, experts are superior to less skilled players at gleaning visual information for

anticipation from cues available from multiple sources including situational such as game

context (e.g., Gray, 2002), opponent action preferences (e.g., Mann, Schaefers, & Cañal-

Bruland, 2014), an opponent’s movement pattern (or kinematics) such as hand and arm

position used to swing a cricket ball (e.g., Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006) or pitch a

curveball, and object trajectory such as flight path of a cricket ball or a curveball (e.g., Paull

& Glencross, 1997). However, situational context information that does not match kinematic

information can be detrimental to anticipation, indicating that kinematic cues are a crucial

source for anticipation (Mann et al., 2014). Use of these multiple sources of information by

experts for anticipation has been predominantly investigated using laboratory-based video-

simulation paradigms, but also confirmed as relevant sources for expert anticipation in field-

based in-situ paradigms (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017).

Visual anticipation is vital in a variety of sports because complex visual-perceptual-

motor responses, such as intercepting a ball in cricket or baseball batting, are made under

high time constraints (Williams et al., 2011). For example, a cricket batter (like a baseball

batter) has approximately 500ms to complete both the gross (lower body foot movement) and

fine (bat movement) components that comprise the visual-perceptual-motor skill, when

attempting to strike a ball delivered by a bowler at speeds above 33.33 m.s-1 (120 kph).

37

Accordingly, it is not possible for players to prepare and execute this sports-specific skill

purely based upon the object flight phase. Theoretical (or mechanistic) scientific

understanding of how experts anticipate in order to consistently perform these complex

visual-perceptual-motor skills is important, which can then guide how visual-perceptual-

motor skills may be trained by the practitioner and transferred to different contexts.

The purpose of this review is to discuss the literature in relation to contributions of

visual and motor expertise (or experience) to expert visual anticipation in sport. The paper is

structured into four sections that include: (i) outline of psychological theories and their

explanation of visual and motor expertise (or experience) contributions to visual-perceptual-

motor skill, (ii) behavioural evidence of visual and motor expertise (or experience)

contributions to anticipation in sport performance, (iii) behavioural evidence of how visual

and motor expertise (or experience) contributes to learning and transfer of anticipation in

sport, and (iv) future research and summary.

Psychological theories of perceptual-motor behaviour

Several theories attempt to explain how visual-perceptual information is used for

motor behaviour, which has relevance to visual anticipation in sport, because the latter is

inherently a visual-perceptual-motor skill. One of those theories, known as the common-

coding theory (Prinz, 1997), can make predictions about performance, learning and transfer

of visual anticipation skill in sport. Performance is defined as an observable goal-directed

motor skill, such as to anticipate and strike a ball in cricket or baseball batting (Magill &

Anderson, 2017; Soderstrom & Bjork, 2015). Learning is defined as the improvement in

performance across pre- to post-tests that is due to a practice intervention or experience

(Magill & Anderson, 2017; Soderstrom & Bjork, 2015). Transfer is defined as the

contribution of what has been learned to performance of the goal-directed motor skill in a

different or novel context (Magill & Anderson, 2017). The term context is critical to this

38

definition, which means that transfer can be conceptualised to occur from the practice

intervention or experience context to video-simulation and in-situ tests or competition

contexts (Müller, Vallence, & Winstein, 2017; Rosalie & Müller, 2012). For example, Gray

(2017) has conceptualised transfer to occur from a baseball batting virtual simulator training

context (that included a visual-perceptual-motor response), to improvement across pre-post-

tests that included in-situ real batting performance (visual-perceptual-motor response) and

pitch recognition in the virtual simulator (verbal response), as well as to competition statistics

contexts after the training phase. This conceptualisation of transfer is important to consider

when reviewing the literature on visual and motor contributions to anticipation discussed

later.

Common-coding theory states that perceptual information from sensory stimuli (e.g.,

visual system) and planned actions (motor system) are represented in the brain in a common-

code, thus perception and action share a common representation (Prinz, 1997). Accordingly,

common-coding theory predicts that pick-up of visual-perceptual information by an observer

maps onto their own motor representation and can contribute to guide or inhibit a motor

response (Schütz-Bosbach, & Prinz, 2007). This includes the pick-up of visual cues in an

opponent’s action to anticipate and guide component action (see Müller & Abernethy, 2012).

This has been referred to in the sport expertise literature as the perceptual experience

hypothesis, whereby through experience, that is, exposure to a situation, stimulus or context

and/or expertise, for example, attainment of a high level of play such as international cricket

(Swann, Moran, & Piggott, 2015), the performer is capable of reading cues in the opponent’s

action and object flight in order to anticipate (e.g., Cañal-Bruland, van der Kamp, & van

Kesteren, 2010). In addition, common-coding theory predicts that the observer’s motor

repertoire, again through experience or expertise, maps onto visual-perceptual information in

the immediate environment and can inform a subsequent motor response or inhibition of a

39

response (Schütz-Bosbach, & Prinz, 2007). This means that not only is the pick-up of visual

cues important for anticipation, but that the performer’s motor response capability (see

Müller & Abernethy, 2012), is also important in shaping meaning from the opponent’s

kinematics, in order to anticipate and respond. This has been referred to as the motor-

experience, or motor capability, hypothesis in the sport expertise literature, whereby greater

experience with, or expertise in, a capability to perform an action such as strike a ball can

influence how the observer perceives (e.g., Cañal-Bruland et al., 2010). Therefore, common-

coding theory predicts bi-directional contributions of sensory and motor systems to visual-

perceptual-motor behaviour.

The neural basis of common-coding theory is suggested through existence of neurons

that are co-activated during perception and action, known as mirror neurons. The seminal

evidence for this was found in studies of monkeys that reported the same neurons were

activated when the monkey observed and performed a grasp (Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Gallese,

& Rizzolatti, 1992; Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 1996; Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese,

& Fogassi, 1996). In humans, considerable evidence has also been reported of sensory and

motor regions of the brain that are synchronously activated when motor skills are observed

and performed (Molenberghs, Cunnington, & Mattingley, 2012). These findings suggest that

the processes related to sensory perception (e.g., visual system) and action (motor system) are

tightly integrated during visual-perceptual-motor behaviour. In relation to anticipation in

sport, several studies using neurophysiological measures such as fMRI with video-based

temporal occlusion have confirmed greater coactivation of sensory and motor regions of the

brain in experts compared to less skilled players (e.g., Balser et al., 2014; Calvo-Merino,

Glaser, Grèzes, Passingham, & Haggard, 2005; Wright, Bishop, Jackson, & Abernethy,

2010).

40

A related theoretical explanation of the motor experience (or motor expertise)

component of common-coding theory is motor system simulation in order to perceive and act

(Wilson & Knoblich, 2005; Witt & Proffitt, 2008). This is also related to the theoretical

concepts of emulation, embodiment and ‘internal models’ in order to perceive and act

(Proffitt, 2006; Zago, McIntyre, Senot, & Lacquaniti, 2009). Wilson and Knoblich (2005)

argue that the motor system is engaged during visual-perception because it is simulating the

observed action. Accordingly, the authors argue that simulation is related to the capability to

‘emulate’ the observed action before it is completed in order to anticipate what will occur.

Simulation of the observed action is part of what has been referred to as an ‘internal model’

of the immediate environment (Diaz, Cooper, Rothkopf, & Hayhoe, 2013; Zago et al., 2009).

Through experience a performer develops an ‘internal model’ of their opponent’s movement

pattern, which can be used to simulate and predict the opponent’s future action (Diaz et al.,

2013; Zago et al., 2009).

In a related manner, a series of studies conducted by Witt and Proffitt (2008) found

that opportunity to use or not use a tool to reach to targets influenced participant perception

of whether targets were reachable. Important findings from their study are; first, targets were

perceived closer (reachable) when distance judgements were made prior to anticipated,

imagined, and hold tool use conditions, compared to a no tool use condition. This indicates

that motor simulation influences perception in an anticipatory manner. Second, when the

anticipatory motor simulation is interfered with, through squeeze of a ball simultaneously to

distance judgements, but prior to use of a tool to reach towards targets, distance to targets are

perceived as further away compared to a no-ball squeeze and reach condition. The cause of

this interference and the impediment to perception is believed to be linked to inhibition of the

predictive function of the ‘internal model’ (Witt & Proffitt, 2008). Therefore, perception of

the immediate environment is embodied within the performer (or perceiver) (Proffitt, 2006).

41

The motor experience component of common-coding theory suggests that the

capability to respond or that possession of the motor pattern that one perceives facilitates how

one perceives the immediate environment. For example, this means that those performers

who possess the movement pattern of the opponent they attempt to anticipate maybe superior

at the pick-up of advance cues in sports. Accordingly, it is unclear whether the capability, or

learning, to pick-up visual cues in order to perceive, and then respond with a complementary

action, and/or learning the motor pattern one perceives coupled with a complementary action,

facilitates better anticipation in sport. This paper now turns to review the literature on visual

and motor expertise (or motor experience) contributions to anticipation in sport. Prior to this,

classification of the studies to be discussed are presented to help conceptualise the purpose of

anticipation in the different skills and tasks that have been studied, as well as whether

possession of the motor pattern facilitates superior anticipation.

Classification of studies that have investigated visual and motor contributions to visual

anticipation in sport

Researchers interested in anticipation in sport have attempted to test the predictions of

common-coding theory by systematically manipulating visual and motor expertise (or motor

experience) to understand their relative contributions to anticipation. This has been

approached in terms of performance using a combination of open and closed skills, with less

of a focus upon learning and transfer using open skills. A closed skill is where the performer

initiates the action, which can occur in a stable or less-stable environment (Magill &

Anderson, 2017). Examples of closed skills include a free-throw in basketball, serving in

sports such as tennis, squash, badminton, and penalty throw in handball. Accordingly, closed

skills require anticipation of performer action, rather than opponent action. Alternatively, an

open skill is where the performer responds to an opponent’s action that is usually performed

in a dynamic environment (Magill & Anderson, 2017). Examples of open skills include

42

cricket and baseball batting, goalkeeping in handball or soccer, and goalkeeping in field

hockey. Here, open skills refer to anticipation of opponent action, rather than the performer’s

own action. Moreover, studies investigating visual and motor contributions to anticipation

can be considered as either ‘matched’ or ‘mismatched’ in terms of what is perceived and the

visuomotor expertise of the performer. A ‘matched’ study is defined as when the motor

pattern of the opponent that is perceived by the performer is identical to the motor pattern

required for a sports-specific response by that performer. For example, anticipation of a

forehand stroke from an opponent in badminton by a performer with expertise in badminton

is ‘matched’ because they both possess expertise in the capability to execute the forehand

stroke. Alternatively, a ‘mismatched’ study is defined as when the motor pattern of the

opponent that is perceived is different to the performer’s motor pattern required to execute

the desired sports-specific response. For example, anticipation of a bowler or pitcher by a

cricket or baseball batsman in order to respond to strike a delivered ball is ‘mismatched’

because the batsman does not possess expertise in the capability to bowl or pitch. A list of the

studies discussed in the forthcoming sections on visual and motor experience, relative to

performance, learning and transfer, as well as their classifications discussed here are

presented in Table 1.

43

Table 1

Classification of Studies that have Investigated Visual and Motor Contributions to

Anticipation

Note. Anticipation stimuli refers to the participant (performer) and what they observe in the

anticipation task in order to make a prediction.

Study Perceptual-Motor Skill Skill Type Anticipation

Stimuli

Performance

Abernethy & Zawi (2007)

Badminton stroke

Open

Matched

Abernethy et al. (2008) Badminton stroke Open Matched

Aglioti et al. (2008) Basketball free -throw Closed Matched

Cañal-Bruland et al. (2010) Handball penalty throw Open Matched

Cañal-Bruland et al. (2011) Beach volleyball serve Open Matched

Urgesi et al. (2012) Volleyball serve Open/Closed Matched

Tomeo et al. (2013) Soccer penalty kick Open Matched

Chen et al. (2017) Baseball batting Open Mismatched

Learning and Transfer

Urgesi et al. (2012)

Mulligan et al. (2014)

Volleyball serve

Darts

Open/Closed

Closed

Matched

Matched

Mulligan et al. (2016a) Darts Closed Matched

Mulligan et al. (2016b) Darts Closed Matched

44

Behavioural evidence of visual and motor contributions to the performance of visual

anticipation in sport

In relation to ‘matched’ studies, Abernethy and colleagues completed two studies

where they applied temporal and spatial occlusion to a point-light display of a badminton

player executing different strokes. Video temporal occlusion is used to determine the timing

(or duration) of visual information pick-up for anticipation. Video spatial occlusion is used to

determine the sources of visual information (or critical visual cues) for anticipation. A point–

light display is a video simulation used to determine the pick-up of pure kinematic

information that is void of colour, contour or shape (see Loffing & Cañal-Bruland, 2017 for

examples of these methods). In their study, expert and non-expert badminton players were

required to watch the point-light display and predict stroke depth as well as direction, which

is an open skill. First, Abernethy and Zawi (2007) found that experts were superior to less

skilled players at anticipation of stroke direction when they could only see isolated body

segments of the lower body or the racquet in the point-light display prior to shuttle flight.

This indicates that possession of visuomotor expertise of the skill perceived, as predicted by

common-coding theory, facilitates anticipation of stroke direction based upon isolated visual

cues, which was available in distal body segments. Second, Abernethy, Zawi, and Jackson

(2008) found that experts were superior to less skilled players at anticipation of stroke depth,

only when they could see the linked body segments in the execution of the movement pattern

prior to shuttle flight. This again indicates that possession of the visuomotor pattern that one

observes, as predicted by common-coding theory, facilitates anticipation relative to the goal

of the task, which was in this instance depth prediction that requires use of cues available

across the whole body.

Other ‘matched’ studies that have investigated the relative contributions of visual and

motor expertise to anticipation have reported similar findings. Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, and

45

Urgesi (2008) manipulated visual and motor expertise by including expert basketball players

(visuomotor experts), coaches (regarded as visual experts), journalists (visual experts), and

novices, in their study. Participants were required to watch a temporally occluded video of a

free-throw (closed skill) and anticipate whether the shot was successful or unsuccessful (in or

out of the basket, respectively). They found that basketball players (visuomotor response

experts) were superior to coaches and journalists (considered here as visual experts), as well

as novices at anticipating shot outcomes at the point of ball release temporal occlusion.

Thereafter, Cañal-Bruland et al. (2010) investigated whether handball field players (motor

pattern expert) and goalkeepers (visuomotor response expert) could better anticipate

deceptive penalty throws (open skill). They found that both field players and goalkeepers

were equally successful at anticipating penalty throws based upon temporal occlusion just

prior to ball release. This finding could be explained by the fact that both field players and

goalkeepers likely possess the motor capability to execute a penalty throw or that general

throwing capability in handball transfers to inform anticipation in goalkeeping. In a follow-up

study, Cañal-Bruland, Mooren, and Savelsbergh (2011) investigated whether beach volleyball

players, coaches, referees, and novices could anticipate a serve (open skill) using a video

temporal occlusion paradigm. They found that players and coaches (considered here as

visuomotor response experts) exhibited superior anticipation in comparison to referees

(considered visual experts) and novices at the point of ball-hand contact temporal occlusion

in the spike. Urgesi, Savonitto, Fabbro, and Aglioti (2012), in experiment 1, investigated the

relative contribution of athletes (visuomotor response expertise), supporters (visual

experience), and novices to anticipation of the volleyball serve (open/closed components of

the skill). Participants were required to anticipate volleyball serves in a video simulation

where footage of the serve was occluded at hand-ball contact (advance cues) and during ball

flight, with each presented from front (open skill) and back (closed skill) perspectives of the

46

server. Athletes and supporters were superior in their prediction to novices across occlusion

conditions and viewing perspectives. Athletes, however, were superior to supporters in

prediction of serves from the back perspective for both occlusion conditions, but athletes

were only superior to supporters based upon the ball flight occlusion condition in the front

perspective. Finally, Tomeo, Cesari, Aglioti, and Urgesi (2013) investigated whether expert

soccer penalty takers (motor pattern expert), goalkeepers (visuomotor response expert) and

novices could anticipate soccer penalty kick location (open skill) in a video simulation

temporal occlusion paradigm. Participants were presented with congruent (non-deceptive)

and incongruent (deceptive) stimuli of penalty kicks. They found that penalty takers and

goalkeepers were not different to each other, but superior to novices in the prediction of

congruent penalties when temporal occlusion was prior to foot-ball contact. Goalkeepers,

however, were superior at anticipation of incongruent penalties based upon advance

information indicating they were less fooled than penalty takers. Again, here it needs to be

considered that the goalkeepers likely have experience in taking penalties and practice

kicking to different locations supporting the predictions of common-coding theory as

possession of the movement pattern they observed may have contributed, through transfer, to

their superior anticipation. Collectively, several of the studies reviewed here indicate that

visual and motor expertise is equally important to anticipation.

There is only one ‘mismatched’ study to our knowledge that investigated the

contribution of visual and motor expertise to anticipation in sport. Chen, Lee, Lu, Huang, and

Yen (2017) investigated whether advanced and intermediate baseball batters with visuomotor

response expertise and pitchers with motor expertise could anticipate whether to swing or not

swing at pitches (an open skill) in a video temporal occlusion paradigm. First, they found that

advanced batters were significantly superior to intermediate pitchers and batters at

anticipating strikes based upon an early ball flight occlusion. Second, they found that

47

advanced pitchers were significantly superior to intermediate pitchers and batters at

anticipating balls based upon an early ball flight occlusion. No significant differences were

reported between advanced batters and advanced pitchers, with prediction by both these

groups above chance, which was not the case for intermediate batters and pitchers. The

findings of this study are consistent with the studies discussed above that support visual and

motor contributions to anticipation are inseparable. Overall, the studies discussed in this

section indicate that visual-perceptual and motor response expertise, as well as possession of

the motor pattern that one perceives, are equally valuable for superior anticipation in sport.

This is consistent with the predictions of common-coding theory outlined earlier where both

visual and motor expertise can contribute to anticipation. It may well be that training both

might be valuable for improving anticipation in sport (Urgesi, 2017).

Behavioural evidence of visual and motor contributions to learning and transfer of

visual anticipation in sport

Fewer studies have investigated the relative contributions of visual and motor

expertise in terms of learning and transfer of visual anticipation in sport. Like the

performance studies discussed above, the foregoing are ‘matched’ learning studies. Based

upon the findings of experiment 1 discussed above, Urgesi et al. (2012) in experiment 2,

investigated the relative contribution of observational (visual) and motor execution training to

anticipation of the volleyball serve in adolescents. A group of adolescents were randomised

into three groups; an observational group watched unoccluded videos of ‘floating’ serves, the

motor training group practiced ‘floating’ serves and a control group watched videos of

defensive scenarios not including floating serves. Observational and motor training groups

received the same technique instructions for execution of the ‘floating’ serve, with all groups

allowed to participate in standard volleyball practice. All groups were pre and post-tested on

the volleyball video temporal occlusion test used in experiment 1 discussed earlier. The

48

authors reported that the motor execution training group improved their capability to

anticipate serves at the advance cue temporal occlusion condition (ball-hand contact) from

the back perspective of the server (closed skill), whilst the observational group improved

based upon the early ball flight occlusion condition. The control group showed no

improvement. Furthermore, no improvement was found for either group in relation to the

front perspective (open skill). It needs to be considered that due to lower ball velocity at the

junior age, adolescents may not need to rely upon advance cues for anticipation (see

Weissensteiner, Abernethy, Farrow, & Müller, 2008). The authors concluded that

observational and motor training may be beneficial in a complementary fashion to improve

anticipation based upon advance and ball flight information.

Hodges and colleagues have conducted a series of studies investigating the relative

contributions of observational (visual) and motor pattern experience to anticipation of dart

location (closed skill). First, Mulligan and Hodges (2014) randomised novices into four

groups: (i) no-vision motor training group, (ii) full visuomotor training group, (iii) vision

only training group and, (iv) no training control group. The no-vision motor training group

practiced throwing darts to three locations on the board, whilst complete vision of the

throwing action and board were temporally occluded using occlusion glasses worn by the

participants. The full-vision training group practised throwing darts to the same locations

with full vision. The vision only training group watched participants from either the no-or

full-vision groups. All groups undertook pre- and post-testing on dart throwing accuracy, as

well as a video temporal occlusion dart location test that presented pre- and post-dart flight

information that required prediction of final landing position of the dart in three separate

areas of the dartboard. Both these tests can be considered as transfer contexts from the

practice contexts in this study (see Gray, 2017). The authors reported that the no-vision motor

and visuomotor (motor pattern training) groups improved their anticipation across testing

49

phases to an extent where it was significantly more accurate in the post-test than the visual

training and control groups. Improvements in prediction were not relative to occlusion

condition, indicating that benefits were achieved uniformly across pre and post dart location

temporal occlusion conditions. In terms of throwing accuracy, only the no-vision training

group’s error was significantly lower than the control group. The authors concluded that

motor experience modulates visual anticipation through simulation of the observed action.

These results support the contention that motor pattern training can improve perceptual

prediction through the process of simulation where the observer’s own motor representations

maps onto what the observer perceives (see Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007; Wilson &

Knoblich, 2005; Witt & Proffitt, 2008).

Second, to test the conclusion that the motor system is involved in simulation during

perception, Mulligan, Lohse, and Hodges (2016a) undertook a follow-up interference study

with experienced and non-experienced dart players. Participants completed a video temporal

occlusion test of dart landing location under different dual-task conditions. The stimuli in the

occlusion task included footage of the participants and another actor throwing darts to three

different locations on the board that was occluded pre- and post-dart flight. Considering the

literature discussed thus far indicates possession of the movement pattern the performer

observes facilitates anticipation, the actor stimuli can be considered as a transfer context (see

Gray, 2017). Results showed that only an incongruent secondary motor task (right arm force

production to push a button), completed simultaneously to the temporal occlusion prediction

task, impaired prediction accuracy of experienced players to a greater extent than other

conditions that included tone counting (general attention), mimicry (congruent motor), and

visual-spatial rotation (visual attention) tasks. None of the conditions impaired the prediction

accuracy of non-experienced players. Prediction of the experienced players, however, was

better than non-experienced players across all conditions except the incongruent motor task.

50

There was no significant difference in prediction between participant and actor throwing

stimuli. The authors concluded that because the incongruent motor task interfered with

prediction accuracy, but the mimicry task did not, motor simulation is engaged during visual

anticipation in those that possess the motor pattern. These findings contribute to the motor

experience hypothesis of common-coding theory (Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007), by

indicating that the motor system is involved in simulation of the action that is perceived (Witt

& Proffitt, 2008).

Third, Mulligan, Lohse, and Hodges (2016b) further tested motor system simulation

by training novices and then using secondary interference tasks. Novice dart players were

randomised to either a visual training, a visuomotor training or a control group. The visual

group viewed static images of dart throwing pre- and post-dart flight and made a prediction

of dart location with knowledge of results of dart location provided. The visuomotor group

threw darts at the board and were able to pick-up information of dart location. The control

group did not participate in any practice. All groups were subjected to pre- and post-tests on

video temporal occlusion and dart throwing tests like their first study above, except that the

occlusion test also included static images of the final frame from each of the dynamic video

clips. As mentioned previously, these tests can be considered as transfer contexts from the

practice contexts (see Gray, 2017). Participants also completed incongruent force production

and tone counting secondary tasks before and after training. The authors reported that both

intervention groups improved their capability to anticipate across static and dynamic stimuli,

which was significantly different to the control group, but was not different to each other.

Only the incongruent secondary motor task (right arm force production), however, impeded

prediction of the visuomotor training group, but not the visual training group. In addition, the

visuomotor group performed better than the other groups in dart throwing accuracy post-

training. The unique conclusion of this study is that improvements to anticipation can be

51

obtained through motor simulation or non-motor (visual) processes. This is consistent with

the prediction of common-coding theory outlined earlier, whereby both visual and motor

experience can be used to perceive (Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). Visual experience

appears to reply upon pick-up of cues for anticipation, whilst motor experience appears

simulate the observed action in order to anticipate. Furthermore, this conclusion suggests that

combined visuomotor training may be more beneficial for superior anticipation in sports

(Karlinsky, Zentgraf, & Hodges, 2017).

Future research and summary

This review has discussed the relative contributions of visual and motor expertise (or

experience) to expert visual anticipation in sport with reference to psychology theories of

visual-perception-action. Much of the work has investigated anticipation in terms of

performance with a focus on ‘matched’ studies, rather than ‘mismatched’ performance,

learning and transfer. Several of the reviewed studies indicate that a dichotomy cannot be

established in terms of the superior benefits of visual or motor expertise to anticipation.

Accordingly, visual and motor expertise (or experience) appear to make equal contributions

to anticipation. It may well be that each can be selectively used from one instant to the next

dependent upon the circumstance, such as in relation to deception by the opponent, to

maintain successful anticipation. Situational context information may complement visual and

motor expertise (or experience) in order to provide an initial evaluation of the immediate

environment that is further confirmed based upon kinematic cues. In addition, there is a need

to investigate the combined benefits of training visual and motor response expertise to

anticipation, as well as embodiment of the motor pattern that one perceives to learning and

transfer to different contexts of anticipation skill. The latter transfer contexts can include

different opponents presented in video-based anticipation tests, in-situ sport-specific

anticipation or performance tests, as well as competition performance (see Gray, 2017;

52

Müller et al., 2017). This is important to provide a mechanistic understanding of how visual

and motor expertise (or experience) facilitates transfer. Collectively, this will offer unique

opportunities for athlete development by practitioners such as where anticipation could be

improved using visual-perceptual, visuomotor response, and motor pattern training in

isolation or combination, and benefit transfer of improvement to different contexts.

53

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CHAPTER 3

Discrimination of Visual Anticipation in Skilled Cricket Batsmen

Abstract

This paper outlines a study that sought to discriminate visual anticipation skill between

highly skilled (n = 13), elite club (n = 17), and elite youth (n = 9) cricket batsmen.

Participants watched a video-based temporal occlusion test of a bowler and anticipated with a

motor response. Results indicated that overall highly skilled and club batsmen were

significantly superior to youth batsmen. Highly skilled batsmen anticipated above chance at

ball release occlusion, whilst club and youth batsmen were above chance at no occlusion.

Findings indicate video-based temporal occlusion with a motor response is sensitive to

discriminate anticipation in skilled players.

Keywords: expertise, anticipation, fine-grained, temporal occlusion, cricket batting

60

Discrimination of visual anticipation in skilled cricket batsmen

Expert motor skill performance in striking sports such as cricket batting is dependent

upon visual anticipation skill in order to cope with high time constraints of object velocity

that directly impacts upon the capability to achieve effective interception (Yarrow, Brown, &

Krakauer, 2009). A large body of research on expert visual anticipation has consistently

reported that experts are superior to less skilled players at using visual information prior to

object flight (known as advance information) to predict the future location of an object

(Müller & Abernethy, 2012). Little attempt has been made to discriminate visual anticipation

of players at the expert end of the skill continuum in striking sports.

A popular methodology used to measure expert visual anticipation is the video-based

temporal occlusion paradigm (Jones & Miles, 1978). In this method, an opponent such as a

cricket bowler is filmed delivering different ball types. This footage is edited so that a black

frame is placed at key kinematic events in the opponent’s action such as at the point of ball

release to create temporal occlusion. A series of randomized test trials are then shown to

expert and novice participants. Participants are required to indicate their prediction by

making a written, button press, verbal, or motor response (e.g., Shim, Carlton, Chow, &

Chae, 2005). Video temporal occlusion can be easily set-up by an applied sport psychologist

or movement scientist to assess athlete performance.

Video based temporal occlusion studies with a written response have reported

superior anticipation by experts over novices in badminton (Abernethy & Russell, 1987),

squash (Abernethy, 1990), tennis (Rowe, Horswill, Kronvall-Parkinson, Poulter, &

McKenna, 2009) and baseball (Paull & Glencross, 1997). Other studies have reported experts

(at international and state level) are superior to intermediate club and low skilled players in

cricket batting at the ball release temporal occlusion (Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006).

When a sport specific perception-action coupled response (e.g., return stroke in tennis

61

without interception) is required to a video-based temporal occlusion, superior anticipation

has been reported by skilled tennis players over novices based upon advance cues (Shim et

al., 2005), as well as between skilled cricket batsmen based upon early ball flight (Renshaw

& Fairweather, 2000). There is a need for comparison of experts to senior elite club level

players and to elite youth players, which targets a more fine-grained skill distribution within

the expert to intermediate club skill continuum than was previously explored in Müller et al.

(2006). Evidence of fine-grained discrimination of anticipation would justify the use of video

temporal occlusion by the practitioner across a variety of skill levels.

Recently, Müller and Abernethy (2012) proposed a preliminary model of anticipation

in striking sports. An aspect of their model outlined that advance visual information can be

used by experts, but not less skilled players, to guide action. Their model is based on studies

that have discriminated anticipation skill at the extremes of the skill continuum. There are no

studies that have investigated the capability of skilled groups of players to use advance

information to guide action. Use of more fine-grained skilled groups of players in this study

attempts to further their theoretical model of expert anticipation.

This study used cricket batting as the exemplar striking sport skill. The purpose of this

study was to discriminate the visual anticipation skill of three groups of skilled cricket

batsmen using a previously validated video-based temporal occlusion test (Müller et al.,

2006, Experiment 1) with a perception-action coupled response. Based upon the literature, it

was predicted that the highly skilled cricket batsmen would have superior anticipation skill

based upon advance information than the senior elite club batsmen and elite youth batsmen.

Method

Participants

A convenience sample of male cricket batsmen (N = 39) was recruited from the

Jamaican Cricket Association. They comprised highly skilled batsmen (n = 13) who

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represented the West Indies at International Test Cricket level or had played First Class

Cricket for Jamaica, elite club batsmen (n = 17) who played in the senior club cricket

competition in Jamaica, and elite youth representative batsmen (n = 9) who had represented

Jamaica at either under 17 or under 19 levels. The age of the highly skilled group was (Mage =

27.15 years, age range: 20-33 years), the club group (Mage = 21.50 years, age range: 17-33

years), and youth representative group (Mage = 18.33 years, age range 17-19 years).

Participants volunteered for the study and provided written informed consent. Ethics approval

was obtained from the relevant institution (permit number 2013/216).

Materials and Procedure

A previous video-based temporal occlusion test where discriminant validity had been

established between experts versus less skilled anticipation (Müller et al., 2006, Experiment

1) was used in this study. The test consisted of 3 (ball types) x 4 (temporal occlusion

conditions) x 4 (replications) totalling 48 trials. The ball types were (a) full outswinger (that

curves to right), (b) full inswinger (that curves to left), and (c) short ball (that bounces

higher). The temporal occlusion conditions were (a) back-foot impact (BFI), (b) front-foot

impact (FFI), (c) ball release (R), and (iv) no occlusion (NO). Participants were shown

familiarization trials that consisted of each of the three ball types with no occlusion and two

practice trials with occlusion followed by feedback. The test trials were randomized with no

feedback provided.

A laptop, projector, and projection screen were used to display the occlusion test.

Participants stood at a mathematically derived distance of 6 m from the projection screen to

create a similar viewing perspective at ball release as they would experience in a match. They

were required to execute a perception-action coupled response to the video footage by

playing a sport specific cricket batting stroke that was a proxy for the ball type they

anticipated. Tape was placed on the floor to allow the participant to take up their batting

63

stance like a match. Another piece of tape was placed perpendicular to this towards the

projection screen. It was explained to the participants that a sport specific motor response (a)

front-foot stroke to the right side of the perpendicular tape and viewed footage indicated

anticipation of the full outswinger, (b) front-foot stroke to the left side of the perpendicular

tape and viewed footage indicated a full inswinger, and (c) back-foot stroke backward from

the batting stance tape indicated anticipation of the short length delivery. Each participant

undertook the test independently with the duration approximately 15 min. A standard 25 Hz

camera was positioned behind the participant, which captured the test trials and participant

responses simultaneously for later coding by visual inspection.

Analysis and Results

The dependent variable was overall prediction accuracy (Müller, Abernethy, Eid,

McBean, & Rose, 2010). Percent accuracy scores were calculated for each participant and for

each of the three skill groups. Two statistical tests were run to attempt to discriminate skilled

anticipation. First, a 3 (skill group) x 4 (occlusion condition) repeated measures factorial

analysis of variance was run to investigate skill group differences in anticipation across

occlusion. Post-hoc least significant difference was used due to the conservative nature of

other follow-up tests (Perneger, 1998). Second, one-sample t tests were run to determine

whether prediction at each occlusion condition was above, at, or below the guessing level of

33.33% for a three-choice task. Alpha level was set at .05 and assumptions of parametric tests

were met according to Field (2009).

Figure 1 graphs overall prediction accuracy for ball types relative to highly skilled,

elite club, and elite youth skill groups at each of the temporal occlusion conditions.

Factorial analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for skill group, F(2,

36) = 6.65, p = .003, ηp2 = .27; a significant main effect for occlusion, F(3, 108) = 34.97, p <

.001, ηp2 = .49; but no skill x occlusion interaction, F(6, 108) = .69, p = .65, ηp

2 = .03. Post-

64

hoc least significant difference test revealed that the skill main effect was because highly

skilled and elite club groups were significantly superior in their prediction to the elite youth

group, (ps < .01). There was no significant difference between the highly skilled and elite

club skill groups, (p > .05). The occlusion main effect was due to prediction under the no

occlusion condition being significantly superior to all other occlusion conditions, (p < .001).

One sample t tests indicated that prediction was significantly above the guessing level of

33.33% for the highly skilled group at R, t(12) = 3.60, p = .004, and NO, t(12) = 11.03, p <

.001, conditions, but at guessing level at BFI and FFI conditions. Prediction was at guessing

level for the elite club and elite youth groups at BFI, FFI and R conditions, but above

guessing level at NO condition, (ps < .001).

Figure 1. Percent accuracy for overall ball types combined for the Test and First Class group

(highly skilled), senior club group (elite club), and representative group (elite youth) relative

to temporal occlusion conditions. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

Discussion

This study was conducted to determine whether fine-grained expertise differences in

visual anticipation based upon advance cues could be found through a perception-action

coupled response to a video-based temporal occlusion test. When both statistical test findings

65

are considered together they support the hypothesis. The findings extend theoretical and

applied knowledge of expert anticipation in striking sports.

By using a perception-action coupled response with a previously validated video-

based temporal occlusion test, the sensitivity of the measure to discriminate more fine-

grained expertise differences in visual anticipation was demonstrated. The test showed

significant between skill group differences in anticipation where the highly skilled and elite

club groups were superior to the elite youth representative group (see Figure 1). It is not

possible to make direct comparisons to previous anticipation literature such as Müller et al.

(2006) because they used a written response and this study used a perception-action coupled

response. However, as the perception-action coupled video occlusion test used in this study

could differentiate a more fine grained level of expertise (i.e., highly skilled vs. elite club vs.

elite youth) than Müller et al. (2006) attempted with a written response (i.e., highly skilled vs.

intermediate club vs. low skilled), it is highly likely that the occlusion test has the sensitivity

to discriminate anticipation across the skill continuum.

Comparison of prediction to chance levels provided further evidence of the sensitivity

of the perception-action coupled response with video-based temporal occlusion. Only the

highly skilled group anticipated above the guessing level of 33.33% based upon advance

information at R occlusion, whereas both elite club and elite youth groups predicted at

guessing level. This is consistent with Shim et al. (2005), who reported that highly skilled

tennis players could anticipate above guessing. Other research conducted using a similar

version of the video-based temporal occlusion test used in this study with a written response

mode indicated that highly skilled players, but not intermediate club players and low skilled

players, were capable of above chance anticipation based upon the ball release advance

information occlusion condition (Müller et al., 2010). These findings indicate that the video

based temporal occlusion test with coupled or decoupled response modes is sensitive to

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detect whether anticipation across the skill continuum is above or below guessing level. This

is important because several anticipation studies in the literature have evaluated whether

available visual information in occlusion conditions have been used to anticipate based upon

chance comparisons (e.g., Shim et al., 2005).

This study makes a small step to further theoretical knowledge about visual

anticipation in striking sports at the expert end of the continuum. The findings based upon

prediction above or below chance level indicates that, at least in this group of skilled players,

only the visual anticipation of highly skilled players based upon advance ball release visual

information was linked to their representative sport specific action. This has important

implications for recent theoretical models of expert anticipation (Müller & Abernethy, 2012)

by indicating that it is not only intermediate or novice players that couple their action to later

visual-perceptual information, but also some groups of skilled players. Recently, fine-grained

expertise differences have also been reported in the combat sport of karate with in-situ

temporal occlusion (Rosalie & Müller, 2013), where the perception-action response of

experts, but not near-experts, was coupled to very early non-movement visual information of

the opponent. No in-situ studies that compared skilled players exist in striking sports even

though these sports are heavily studied in the anticipation literature.

Practical Application, Conclusion and Future Research

The capability of the temporal occlusion test used in this study to discriminate skilled

anticipation presents an easily transportable and time efficient method that can be used by the

applied sport psychologist or movement scientist to assess performance and learning. In

terms of performance assessment, skilled athletes can be tested using a perception-action

coupled response that incurs little physical fatigue to the participant. The test also alleviates

difficulty in terms of physical fatigue and potential injury to both the participant and stimulus

opponents, as well as greater incurrence of participant time during in-situ methods (Müller,

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Brenton, & Rosalie, 2015). In terms of intervention programs, the low risk of the test to

fatigue or injury is vital due to pre-test, post-test, and possible retention test designs that may

be used to assess learning. Such repeated measures designs are difficult to complete using in-

situ methods for a variety of reasons such as logistics (Müller et al., 2015). A single in-situ

transfer test, however, would appear to be more achievable within a pre- and post-test

temporal occlusion perception-action coupled intervention study.

This study extended knowledge indicating that coupling perception-action to video

temporal occlusion can discriminate skilled anticipation. Future research could do the same

using other methodologies in sport expertise literature such as in-situ temporal occlusion,

chronometric analysis, pattern recognition and recall. These types of fine-grained expertise

studies are important to extend knowledge beyond the expert versus novice paradigm.

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Renshaw, I., & Fairweather, M. M. (2000). Cricket bowling deliveries and the discrimination

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Rosalie, S. M., & Müller, S. (2013). Timing of in situ visual information pick-up that

differentiates expert and near-expert anticipation in a complex motor skill. Quarterly

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Rowe, R., Horswill, M. S., Kronvall-Parkinson, M., Poulter, D. R., & McKenna, F. P. (2009).

The effect of disguise on novice and expert Tennis players' anticipation ability.

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Shim, J., Carlton, L. G., Chow, J. W., & Chae, W. S. (2005). The use of anticipatory visual

cues by highly skilled tennis players. Journal of Motor Behavior, 37, 164-175.

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CHAPTER 4

Visual-Perceptual Training with Acquisition of the Observed Motor Pattern

Contributes to Greater Improvement of Visual Anticipation.

Revised Version

Abstract

This dual-experiment paper investigated the contribution of visual and additive motor

experience to improvement of visual anticipation. In experiment 1, club cricket batters were

randomized into (i) visual-perceptual group that received temporal occlusion training (n =

13), (ii) visuomotor group that received temporal occlusion training coupled with motor

pattern practice of the observed bowler’s action (n = 13), and (iii) no-training control group

(n = 13). They completed a fast bowler video-based temporal occlusion pre-post anticipation

test, as well as a transfer temporal occlusion test that included different fast and slow

bowlers. Results indicated visual-perceptual and visuomotor groups equally improved pick-

up of advance cues across pre-post-tests. Additive motor pattern practice for the visuomotor

group facilitated superior anticipation through earlier pick-up of advance information across

the transfer tests. No improvement was found for the control group. In experiment 2, a

different group of club cricket batters (n = 11) who completed temporal occlusion training

with practice to interfere with acquisition of the observed bowler’s action, showed no

improvements across pre-post-transfer-tests. Collectively, these findings indicate that visual

and combined motor experience facilitates learning, but additive motor experience facilitates

superior transfer. Findings have implications for theoretical and applied knowledge to

develop anticipation skill.

Keywords; visual-perceptual training, motor pattern training, temporal occlusion,

visual anticipation, cricket batting.

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Significance Statement

The capability to read an opponent in striking sports can be improve through video simulation

training, but when combined with motor practice of the observed pattern benefits are broader.

This training is not time consuming and can be easily incorporated into standard sport-

specific practice.

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Visual-Perceptual Training with Acquisition of the Observed Motor Pattern Contributes to

Greater Improvement of Visual Anticipation

Visual anticipation is well established as a key expertise skill set for performance in

high-speed striking sports such as cricket, baseball and tennis (Abreu, Candidi, & Aglioti,

2017). Anticipation is important because an opponent, such as bowler or pitcher, projects a

ball at high velocity in order to reduce the available time that a performer, such as cricket or

baseball batter, has to process available visual information and organize movements to

attempt to strike the ball. For example, in cricket and baseball batting, ball velocity can be in

excess of 33.33 m/s (120 kph). To cope with these extreme time constraints, an extensive

body of literature has reported that experts of international or provincial level are superior to

less skilled players of club, recreational or novice levels in the pick-up of visual cues prior to

ball flight (known as advance cues) in order to anticipate (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017).

Specifically, game context (e.g., McRobert, Ward, Eccles, & Williams, 2011) and opponent

kinematic information is used to guide positioning of the lower body, whilst ball flight

information is used to strike a ball with a bat or inhibit a response (Morris-Binelli & Müller,

2017). Therefore, expert performers are capable of gaining time to respond by the use of

visual information from the opponent’s movement pattern, or kinematics, to deal with these

high time constraints.

Visual and motor contributions to anticipation

In the past 10 years, sport expertise researchers have been interested in whether it is

visual-perceptual expertise, or experience (e.g., Tomeo, Cesari, Aglioti, & Urgesi, 2013),

motor expertise, or experience, (e.g., Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi, 2008) or

combinations of both (Müller, Vallence, & Winstein, 2017) that contributes to superior

capability to anticipate in sport. It is important to clarify that expertise refers to attainment of

a skill performance level such as an international cricket batter, whilst experience refers to

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exposure to a stimulus, context or task such as motor practice of the observed bowler’s action

discussed later (see Swann, Moran, & Piggott, 2015). Clearly, expertise is dependent on

experience and so it is extremely difficult to separate the independent contributions of each

phenomenon to the capability to anticipate in sport. The research question related to visual

and/or motor contributions to expert anticipation has stemmed from psychological theories

such as common-coding theory, which states that sensory and motor information are tightly

linked through a common representation code (Prinz, 1997). Specifically, common-coding

theory predicts that visual-perceptual information maps onto the motor representation and can

be used to guide a complementary action response (Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). This has

been referred to in the sport expertise literature as the perceptual experience hypothesis (e.g.,

Chen, Lee, Lu, Huang, & Yen, 2017) and suggests that an expert performer can use visual

cues from the opponent’s action to anticipate. In addition, common-coding theory predicts

that visual-perceptual-motor capability maps onto sensory visual-perceptual information and

can modulate how this information is perceived in order to guide a complementary action

response (Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). This has been referred to in the sport expertise

literature as the motor experience hypothesis (e.g., Chen et al., 2017), suggesting that visual-

perceptual-motor response capability and/or the acquired motor pattern of what is observed in

the performer can modulate how they perceive visual cues in the opponent’s action in order

to anticipate.

Behavioural evidence of common-coding is suggested through visual search patterns

that are similar during observation of an actor performing a task to when the same task is

performed by the observer (Flanagan & Johansson, 2003), as well as visual-perceptual

training that has been reported to improve motor execution and motor execution training that

improves visual-perception (Hecht, Vogt, & Prinz, 2001). Neural evidence of common-

coding is suggested through coactivation of sensory and motor regions of the human brain

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during observation of an action, which corresponds with the same brain regions that are

activated when the individual performs the same action (Balser et al., 2014; Calvo-Merino,

Grèzes, Glaser, Passingham, & Haggard, 2006; Fadiga, Fogassi, Pavesi, & Rizzolatti, 1995;

Molenberghs, Cunnington, & Mattingley, 2012). Therefore, common-coding theory predicts

a bi-directional contribution of visual and motor experience to visual-perceptual-motor

behavior that encompasses visual anticipation in sport.

Motor simulation in anticipation

It has been suggested that the motor system is engaged during visual-perception

because it is simulating the observed action prior to a complementary action response to

achieve the motor skill goal (Wilson & Knoblich, 2005). This simulation is part of what has

been referred to as an ‘internal model’ of the immediate environment that is used to predict

its future state (Diaz, Cooper, Rothkopf, & Hayhoe, 2013; Zago, McIntyre, Senot, &

Lacquaniti, 2009; Zhao & Warren, 2015). For example, Diaz et al. (2013) manipulated ball

speed and elasticity in a virtual racquet-ball interception task. The authors reported that

novices made anticipatory saccades to a fixation location above the bounce point prior to ball

arrival, which indicated the use of pre-bounce visual-perceptual information to make

predictive saccades in order to intercept the ball. When ball elasticity was varied without

notification, however, participants adjusted the location of their anticipatory saccades to

reflect the higher bounce height of more elastic balls, which indicated the use of experienced-

based information to guide anticipatory behavior. Therefore, a combination of visual-

perceptual and experience-based information appears to assist the ‘internal-model’ to better

anticipate the future state of the immediate environment.

Furthermore, studies have reported that visual-perception of the immediate

environment is shaped by the observer’s motor capability, for example, perceived distance of

targets prior to reaching towards them is dependent upon whether one can or cannot use a

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tool to reach the target (Witt & Proffitt, 2008). When an interference task such as squeezing a

ball is completed prior to reaching towards targets, there is no difference in perceived

distance of targets whether one can or cannot use a tool to reach the target because it impedes

the predictive function of the ‘internal model’ (Witt & Proffitt, 2008). In other research, it has

been reported that participants are better able to predict the timing of actions from a three-

dimensional video simulation of their movements, than the same movements by others

(Colling, Thompson, & Sutton, 2014). More recently, it has been reported that the degree of

control over action capability to move a paddle to catch a virtual ball can modulate how one

perceives the speed of the ball, as well as success in catching the ball (Witt, 2017b).

The foregoing studies imply that an anticipatory motor simulation based upon the

capability to act is engaged during visual-perception. Collectively, these findings imply that

visual-perception is embodied within the motor capability of the observer. It is important to

test this evidence in relation to sport because the critical skill of visual anticipation can vary

relative to skill level, meaning that higher visual-perceptual-motor capability may contribute

to superior anticipation. Furthermore, the foregoing studies have focused primarily on visual-

perceptual judgements (Witt, 2017a), rather than complementary visual-perceptual-motor

responses that commonly occur in sport (Hodges, 2017).

Methodologies and expert anticipation

In order to investigate visual-perceptual and motor contributions to visual anticipation

in sport, studies have used combinations of video and spectacle-based temporal occlusion, as

well as point-light-display methods. The purpose of temporal occlusion is to control the

duration of sport-specific visual information presented to the performer in order to investigate

the timing of visual information pick-up for anticipation (Williams, Ford, Eccles, & Ward,

2011). Video-based temporal occlusion involves footage of, for example, a cricket bowler or

tennis player executing sport-specific skills, where a black video frame is placed at key

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events such as the point of ball release or racquet-ball contact, with no further footage shown

(e.g., Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006; Shim et al., 2006). This is done to determine

whether the participant can use the presented visual information to anticipate. In relation to

the exemplar skill of cricket batting in this study, it has been reported that international and

state (provincial) level batters, but not club level batters, are capable of using advance

information to anticipate ball types delivered by fast and slow (spin) bowlers to above chance

levels (Müller et al., 2006; Renshaw & Fairweather, 2000). A point-light display involves

video footage that displays only the pure kinematics of an opponent as points-of-light on

anatomical landmarks, which is void of color, contour or shape (Abernethy, Gill, Parks, &

Packer, 2001; Huys et al., 2009). Temporal occlusion is applied at key events such as the

point of ball release or racquet-ball contact in the point-light display. It has been reported that

the minimum information experts in striking sports use to anticipate is the pure kinematics

available in the point-light display (e.g., Huys et al., 2009). In these methods, the performer

can be required to make a written, verbal, or sport-specific motor response to anticipate.

These methods have been consistently reported to include discriminant validity through

differentiation of expert (international), near-expert (state or provincial) and lesser skilled

(club) anticipation in a variety of sports (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Therefore, the

foregoing are robust methods to use in order to understand visual and motor experience

contributions to anticipation in sport.

Evidence of visual and motor contributions to anticipation

The majority of the studies that have investigated visual and motor expertise (or

experience) contributions to anticipation in sport have measured visual-perceptual

anticipation, which involves a non-motor prediction. In addition, the majority of studies have

focused upon performance, rather than learning and transfer (Müller et al., 2017). In relation

to performance, seminal studies were conducted by Abernethy and colleagues. Abernethy and

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Zawi (2007) used a video-based point-light display that included temporal and spatial

occlusion to understand the linkages between what was observed and expertise of players to

anticipate. The authors reported that only expert badminton players, but not less skilled

players, could anticipate stroke direction when they saw isolated body segments of the lower

body and racquet of an opponent in a point-light display based upon advance cue

information. In a follow-up study, Abernethy, Zawi, and Jackson (2008) reported that only

expert badminton players, but not less skilled players, needed to view linked segments of the

lower body, torso, and racquet-arm sequence of an opponent prior to shuttle flight in order to

anticipate stroke depth. These behavioral studies indicate that possession of visual-

perceptual-motor pattern of what one perceives might facilitate superior capability to

anticipate, which is consistent with the prediction of common-coding theory, but further

investigation through manipulation of visual and motor expertise was required.

Other performance studies have manipulated visual, visuomotor, motor and expertise

level in an attempt to provide a more fine-grained analysis of what contributes to anticipation

with mixed findings. It has been reported that expertise and possession of the visuomotor

pattern that one perceives, such as an expert basketball player observing another basketball

player taking a free-throw, facilitates superior anticipation in comparison to visual experts

such as coaches or journalists who may not possess the movement pattern they observe, as

well as novices who had limited experience (Aglioti et al., 2008; Cañal-Bruland, Mooren, &

Savelsbergh, 2011). However, it has been reported that visuomotor response experts (e.g.,

soccer goalkeepers) are superior to experts who possess the motor pattern they observe (e.g.,

soccer penalty takers) when they both attempt to anticipate deceptive soccer penalty kicks

(Tomeo et al., 2013). Conversely, there is evidence to suggest that there are no differences

between visuomotor response experts and experts who possess the motor pattern such as

baseball batters and pitchers when both anticipate a pitcher (Chen et al., 2017). It is important

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to consider that whilst previous research has attempted to distinguish between visuomotor

response and motor pattern experts, the majority are ‘matched’ studies, where the expert

performers possessed the visuomotor pattern that they attempted to anticipate. Less is known

in terms of ‘mismatched’ scenarios such as cricket or baseball batting where the expert

performers do not necessarily possess the movement pattern that they intend to anticipate

(e.g., Chen et al., 2017). Collectively, on balance, performance studies indicate both visual-

perceptual and motor expertise (or experience) are equally valuable to visual-perceptual

anticipation in sport.

In relation to learning and transfer, Mulligan and colleagues have conducted a series

of studies to investigate whether visual-perceptual or motor training makes a greater

contribution to visual-perceptual anticipation in the ‘matched’ skill of darts. Mulligan and

Hodges (2014) compared whether different groups of novices could better anticipate dart

locations on a video temporal occlusion test before and after training if they: (i) practiced

throwing a dart whilst their vision of the complete action was occluded using occlusion

glasses, (ii) threw with full vision, or (iii) observed a dart being thrown, in comparison to a no

practice control group. The authors reported that the no-vision motor and visuomotor practice

groups improved their anticipation from pre-test to a level that was significantly superior to

the observation training and no practice control groups in the post-test. These findings imply

that motor practice of what is observed is vital to enhance anticipation and maybe due to

motor simulation. In a follow-up study, Mulligan, Lohse, and Hodges (2016) used secondary

interference tasks with the dart video temporal occlusion test to probe motor simulation. They

found that visual, i.e., observation training, and visuomotor training groups improved their

anticipation from the pre-test to where both groups were superior to a no practice control

group, but not each other in the post-test. When an incongruent dual-task was completed with

the temporal occlusion test, anticipation accuracy for the visuomotor group was significantly

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impeded, in comparison to the other two groups that experienced congruent dual-tasks that

did not interfere with motor simulation processes as predicted. These findings imply that

motor simulation influences the capability to anticipate and when disrupted anticipation is

impeded. Again, it needs to be considered that these studies are ‘matched’ visual-perceptual-

motor skills, where participants are required to learn and predict the same movement pattern.

Little is known about how visual-perceptual training alone or combined with motor pattern

training of what one observes contributes to a complementary response such as to anticipate

in cricket or baseball batting (see Hodges, 2017; Müller et al., 2017). Furthermore, the studies

discussed here indicate that training both visual and motor components can benefit

anticipation, so it may well be that combining both is more beneficial for learning and

transfer (see Karlinsky, Zentgraf, & Hodges, 2017).

The overall purpose of this dual-experiment paper is to extend theoretical

understanding of whether visual-perceptual and visuomotor pattern training contributes

greater to learning and transfer of visual anticipation in a striking sport. Cricket batting is

used as the exemplar striking sport skill for three reasons. First, there is sufficient previous

evidence to assess participants with a sports-specific video-based temporal occlusion test, as

well as design training to facilitate the pick-up of advance cues to improve anticipation.

Second, there are specialized roles within a cricket team such as batter and bowler with the

former required to strike the ball to score runs and latter to bowl the ball to dismiss the batter.

Third, cricket batting is a ‘mismatched’ open skill (Magill & Anderson, 2017) where

specialist batsman have attained a degree of expertise in the visuomotor response (batting),

but do not have high attained expertise or experience in reproducing the bowling pattern that

they attempt to anticipate. Experiment 1 tests the predictions of common-coding theory and

motor simulation through the contribution of visual-perceptual and visuomotor pattern

training to the enhancement of anticipation. Based upon these findings, experiment 2

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interfered with the acquisition of the motor pattern to determine its additive contribution to

the improvement of anticipation.

Experiment 1

The purposes of experiment 1 were to investigate whether: (a) visual-perceptual

temporal occlusion training of batters to anticipate an opponent bowler or visual-perceptual

training of batters combined with motor practice of the observed bowler’s action facilitates

superior learning of visual anticipation that requires a complementary action response, and

(b) which mode of training facilitates superior transfer of anticipation to different types of

bowlers. This was achieved by comparing the two intervention groups to a no-practice

control group on a cricket batting video-based temporal occlusion fast bowler test in a pre-

post-test control group design. Thereafter, transfer was examined through a batting video-

based temporal occlusion test of two different types of bowlers, another fast bowler and a

slow (spin) bowler. Based upon the theoretical and empirical evidence presented earlier, it

was hypothesized: (1) both visual-perceptual and visuomotor training groups would improve

their capability to anticipate based upon the temporal availability of advance information, but

not the no-practice control group, against the pre-post-test fast bowler, (2) the visuomotor

practice training group would transfer to pick-up earlier temporal advance information from a

different fast bowler, than the visual-perceptual training group, with no transfer by the control

group, and (3) none of the groups would transfer to pick-up advance information from the

slow (spin) bowler because they were trained using fast bowler visual-perceptual stimuli.

Method

Participants

A total of 39 male club cricket batters were recruited from three district cricket clubs

in a state in Australia. All were specialist batters who batted in positions 1 to 6 of the batting

inning. District cricket is the club competition below the state or provincial level in Australia.

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Thirteen batsmen, comprised of Divisions 1 and 2, from each club were stratified and

randomized equally into three experimental groups. They consisted of, a visual-perceptual

training (Mage = 23.35, age range 18 – 31 years), visuomotor pattern training (Mage = 23.41,

age range 18 – 31 years), and control (Mage = 24.8, age range 18 – 36 years) groups. None of

the participants had played cricket at the state level. A power analysis was conducted using

G-power based upon data in Mulligan and Hodges (2014), which indicated that with α = .05

and 80% power, samples of at least 10 participants were required. Ethical approval was

received from the relevant university committee and participants gave written informed

consent.

Experimental Design and Procedures

A pre- and post-test control group design with a transfer test was used in this

experiment. All participants’ anticipation was tested using a video-based temporal occlusion

test, which had been previously reported to demonstrate fine-grained discriminant validity

between skilled cricket batsmen (Brenton, Müller, & Mansingh, 2016; Müller et al., 2006).

The two intervention groups then received temporal occlusion point-light display training on

its own (visual-perceptual training) or coupled with motor practice of the bowling pattern

they observed (visuomotor pattern training). The control group only completed the testing

phases. All groups also participated in their standard cricket practice and competed in

matches during the cricket season. After the post-test, all groups completed a transfer video-

based temporal occlusion test that included a different fast bowler and a slow (spin) bowler of

state level standard to the pre-post-tests (see Figure 1a and b). The spin bowler test had been

previously used in the literature (Müller et al., 2006). The order of the transfer tests were

counterbalanced within each group.

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(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 1. Still image examples of fast (a) and slow (b) bowlers as well as point-light display

of the fast bowler (c) at the time of ball release.

Test procedures. Participants were required to watch the footage of a fast bowler

until temporal occlusion and anticipate the correct ball type from three options. The fast

bowler temporal occlusion test was the same one as used in experiment 1 of Müller et al.

(2006). The test consisted of 3 ball types x 2 filmed versions x 2 replications x 4 temporal

occlusion conditions totaling 48 trials presented in random order. The three ball types

included: (a) a full length outswinger (that lands closer to and curves away from the batter), a

full length inswinger (that lands closer to and curves in towards the batter), and a short length

83

ball (that lands further away from the batter and bounces higher). The temporal occlusion

conditions included three that were based upon advance cues from the bowler’s action: (i)

back-foot impact (BFI), (ii) front-foot impact (FFI), and (iii) ball release with a ball flight no

occlusion control condition (iv) (see Müller et al., 2006, experiment 1 for further details).

Participants were shown three unoccluded trials of each ball type and completed two

temporal occlusion practice trials with feedback in order to familiarize themselves to the

stimuli and task. The trial matrix was the same for spin bowler test, including three ball types:

(a) a full length leg spinner (that lands closer to and spins away from the batter), (b) a full

length ‘wrong un’ (that lands closer to and spins towards the batter), and (c) a short length

ball.

The temporal occlusion test was projected through a Dell Latitude laptop (model

2009) and an Epson projector (model EMP1700) onto a screen (1.4 m x 1.4 m) in a cricket

clubroom style setting (see Figure 2). Participants stood 6 m from the screen to create a

mathematically derived similar viewing angle of the bowler of 7 degrees as would occur in

the actual game setting. They watched the bowler until temporal occlusion occurred and then

immediately played a sport-specific batting stroke to anticipate one of the three ball types.

Masking tape was placed on the floor in front of cricket stumps to simulate the batting crease.

Tape was also placed perpendicular to the batting crease in line with the middle stump and

towards the projector screen. Participants were required to play either: (a) a front-foot stroke,

which necessitated forward movement of the body and vertical swing of the bat to the right-

hand side of the perpendicular tape in order to anticipate a full length outswinger (and full

length leg spinner), (b) a front-foot stroke, which necessitated a forward movement of the

body and vertical swing of the bat to the left-hand side of the perpendicular tape to anticipate

a full length inswinger (and full length ‘wrong un’), or (c) a back-foot stroke, which

necessitated backward movement of the body from the batting stance position and a vertical

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or horizontal swing of the bat to anticipate the short length ball. Participants completed the

test independently, with the test footage and their responses simultaneously filmed using a

standard 25Hz Sony video camera (model NEX-VG10) for later coding by visual inspection

(see Brenton et al., 2016).

Figure 2. Experimental set-up for video-based temporal occlusion tests and motor practice of

bowling. Participants stood at the batting crease and played their stroke in the direction of the

arrow towards the projector screen. Participants bowled from the bowling point towards the

direction of the arrow towards the wickets.

Training procedures. Both the visual-perceptual and visuomotor intervention groups

received two sessions of training per week over a four-week period. The visual-perceptual

training group watched a complete body point-light display created of different versions of

the same ball types from the fast bowler used in the temporal occlusion pre- and post-tests

(see Figure 1c). A point-light display was used because previous research has reported that it

presents the core information used for anticipation (e.g., Abernethy et al., 2001). The point-

light display training consisted of 3 ball types x 3 temporal occlusion conditions x 4

replications totaling 36 trials per session. This volume of trials was deemed suitable to be

able to access participants during their standard weekly cricket practice. The three ball types

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were the same as those used in the occlusion test-retest and transfer phases for the fast

bowlers. Three temporal occlusion training conditions were included to progressively

challenge the participants: (a) no occlusion, where the bowler’s delivery action and complete

ball flight could be viewed, (b) pre-bounce, where the bowler’s delivery action and ball flight

prior to ball bounce could be viewed, and (c) ball release, where the bowler’s delivery action

until the point of ball release could be viewed.

Training sessions were designed to progress in difficulty from easier to harder in

order to challenge participants and guard against disengagement from the task. In the first

training session, participants viewed a video version and then completed the remaining seven

sessions using the point-light display version. The following second to sixth sessions of

point-light display training involved equally blocked trials of no occlusion, followed by pre-

bounce temporal occlusion, followed by ball release temporal occlusion. Sessions seven and

eight included a randomized sequence of trials that included no occlusion, temporal occlusion

at pre-ball bounce and ball release conditions. In each practice trial, participants watched the

projected footage of the point-light display bowler, like in the test phases, and played a sport-

specific batting stroke. Immediately afterwards, for the occluded trials only, feedback was

provided in the form of an unoccluded replay of the previous practice trial. Participants stood

and watched the unoccluded feedback trial with no additional instruction from the

experimenter, and thereafter, continued accordingly with subsequent practice trials.

The visuomotor pattern training group completed the same training as the visual-

perceptual training group, except that after each visual-perceptual practice trial they also

practiced the bowling pattern they viewed. Accordingly, the visuomotor pattern training

group watched the point-light display, played a sports-specific batting stroke to anticipate the

ball type, received feedback through an unoccluded trial, and then, were given a modified

softer cricket ball to bowl the ball they just viewed on an indoor pitch half the length of a

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standard cricket pitch. This required participants to attempt to learn the motor pattern they

viewed in terms of the whole body action, as well as the subtle wrist and arm position used

by the point-light display bowler to deliver the three ball types. Participants were able to

obtain feedback by observing the trajectory of ball flight corresponding to the ball types they

bowled and intended to reproduce from the point-light display. The bowling practice trials

were also filmed using a standard 25Hz video camera for later qualitative coding of the

bowling pattern through visual inspection (Knudson & Morrison, 2002). Each training

session for visual-perceptual and visuomotor groups took approximately 10 and 20 minutes to

complete, respectively.

Dependent Measures and Statistical Analyses

Alpha level was set at .05 for all ANOVAs, but for chance comparisons, alpha level

was adjusted to .01 to guard against familywise error. The main dependent variable was mean

percentage prediction accuracy of overall ball type anticipation (Müller, Abernethy, Eid,

McBean, & Rose, 2010), for the three experimental groups across temporal occlusion

conditions, as well as pre-, post- and transfer-test phases. Three statistical tests were run to

investigate the hypotheses. First, to test hypothesis 1 (learning), a 3 group x 2 pre-post-test

phase x 4 temporal occlusion factorial ANOVA with repeated measures on the last two

factors was run. The purpose of this test was to determine which groups improved

anticipation across pre- to post-tests and temporal occlusion conditions, which investigated

learning. Second, to test hypothesis 2 and 3 (transfer), two separate, 3 group x 4 temporal

occlusion factorial ANOVAs with repeated measures on the last two factors were run. The

purpose of this test was to determine how each group’s anticipation differed in the fast and

slow bowler transfer tests. For both factorial ANOVAs, post-hoc Tukey HSD and pairwise

comparisons tests were used to follow-up any main or interaction effects. Third, to also test

the hypotheses, one sample t-tests were run to determine if prediction was above, at or below

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the guessing level of 33.33 percent for a three-choice task. The purpose of this test was to

determine whether the training improved the capability of the groups to perform above

guessing (anticipate) or remain at guessing (learning: hypothesis 1), as well as whether they

could transfer to anticipate above guessing against two different types of bowlers (transfer:

hypothesis 2 & 3). Fourth, inter- and intra-rater reliability was conducted on six participants

from each of the experimental groups across pre-post-, and transfer-tests, which included

3452 trials from a total of 7488 trials. Intra-class correlation coefficient was calculated

according to Portney and Watkins (2009). Cohen’s d effect sizes were also calculated to

explore between group differences (Cohen, 1988).

Two other dependent variables were measured for each training session: (i) mean

percentage prediction accuracy of overall ball type anticipation for both intervention groups

at the ball release (advance cue) temporal occlusion condition, and (ii) mean percentage

accuracy for reproduction of the motor pattern of the point-light display bowler for the

visuomotor pattern training group. For prediction accuracy, two statistical tests were run: (a)

2 group x 8 session repeated measures ANOVA, and (b) one sample t-tests to determine if

prediction was above, at or below guessing level of 33.33 percent. The purpose of these tests

were to determine whether both intervention groups followed a similar acquisition in their

practice sessions performance curve.

For the motor pattern reproduction, key components of cricket bowling technique

were identified based upon previous literature with a qualitative rating then applied to those

in the visuomotor pattern training group (see Knudson & Morrison, 2002). The components

that were rated included: (1) grip of the ball, which included the index and middle fingers on

top of the ball and the thumb on the bottom of the ball (relative to the video in training

session 1), (2) front-arm position, which rotated in a sagittal plane during the delivery stride,

(3) wrist position of bowling hand, which included radial or ulna deviation for the outswinger

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and inswinger, respectively, and a neutral position for the short ball, (4) follow through,

which included the bowling arm’s path across the front of the body, and (5) ball trajectory,

which curved in the air to the right or left for the outswinger and inswinger, respectively, and

no curve in the air for the short ball (Portus, Sinclair, Burke, Moore, & Farhart, 2000). The

first three components were assessed at back-foot impact, front-foot impact and ball release,

whereas the other two components were analyzed during the follow-through and ball

trajectory, as these were the times during the bowling action when they were visible (Glazier,

Paradisis, & Cooper, 2000). Each component was scored as achieved (1) or not achieved (0)

for the practice trials across sessions and the temporal sequence of the bowling action, with

the total tallied, and then, converted to a percentage of components reproduced score. This

percentage qualitative rating score was averaged across participants in each training session.

A repeated measures ANOVA was then run across the eight training sessions. The purpose of

this test was to determine whether there was acquisition of the motor pattern across practice

sessions performance curve. It was thought that motor pattern and prediction accuracy

practice performance would provide insight into the eventual learning and transfer of the two

intervention groups. Inter- and intra-rater reliability was again conducted on six participants

for prediction accuracy and motor pattern reproduction measures across the eight training

session, which included 3456 trials from a total of 5760 trials. For repeated measures

analyses that violated the assumption of sphericity, a Greenhous-Geisser correction was

applied.

Results and Discussion

Pre- and post-tests. Figure 3 plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the

visual-perceptual, visuomotor and control groups in relation to the temporal occlusion

conditions and pre-post-test phases. Intraclass correlation revealed strong inter- and intra-

rater reliability of (r = 0.92) and (r = 0.98), respectively.

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Figure 3. Mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental groups across test

phases and temporal occlusion conditions. Horizontal line indicates guessing level of 33.33%

and asterisks indicate prediction above guessing level. Error bars represent standard error of

the mean.

In relation to hypothesis 1 (learning), Factorial ANOVA revealed a significant main

effects for group, F(2, 36) = 15.09, p < .001, ηp2 = .45, as well as a significant group x testing

phase interaction, F(2, 36) = 10.27, p < .001, ηp2 = .36. There was also a main effect for

testing phase, F(1, 36) = 29.34, p < .001, ηp2 = .44, and temporal occlusion condition, F(3,

108) = 64.98, p < .001, ηp2 = .64, but none of the other interactions were significant. Post-hoc

tests indicated that the group main effect was due to superior overall prediction accuracy of

the visual-perceptual (M = 49.44 %, SD = 3.00) and visuomotor (M = 51.92 %, SD = 3.00)

intervention groups over the control group (M = 40.78 %, SD = 3.00), d = 2.88 and 3.71, p =

.001 and p < .001, respectively. The group x testing phase interaction was due to superior

prediction accuracy by the visual-perceptual (M = 56.89 %, SD = 4.10) and visuomotor (M =

59.94 %, SD = 4.10) intervention groups over the control group (M = 39.90 %, SD = 4.10) in

the post-test, d = 4.14 and 4.88, respectively, with no significant difference between the three

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groups in the pre-test, F(2, 36) = .28, p = .752, ηp2 = .01. The testing phase and occlusion

main effects were due to superior overall prediction accuracy in the post-test (M = 52.24 %,

SD = 2.36, p < .001) and no occlusion condition (M = 65.59 %, SD = 3.44, p < .001). Table 1

presents one-sample t-tests that show each groups prediction relative to the guessing level of

33.33 percent.

Transfer tests. Figure 4 (a) and (b) plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation

for the visual-perceptual, visuomotor and control groups in relation to the temporal occlusion

conditions for the fast and slow bowler transfer tests.

In relation to hypothesis 2 (transfer) for the fast bowler, factorial ANOVA revealed

significant main effects for group, F(2, 36) = 14.73, p < .001, ηp2 = .45, and occlusion,

F(2.42, 87.16) = 52.57, p < .001, ηp2 = .59, but no interaction between group and occlusion.

Post-hoc tests indicated that the group main effect was due to significantly superior

prediction accuracy by the visuomotor group (M = 60.41 %, SD = 5.50) over the visual-

perceptual (M = 50.64 %, SD = 5.50) and control (M = 39.26 %, SD = 5.50) groups, d = 1.77

and 3.84, p = .04 and p < .001, and respectively, as well as significantly superior prediction

accuracy by the visual-perceptual group over the control group, d = 2.06, p = .01. The

occlusion main effect was due to significantly superior prediction accuracy in the no

occlusion condition (M = 74.78 %, SD = 5.30, p < .001) compared to the other temporal

occlusion conditions. Table 2 presents one-sample t-tests that show each groups prediction

relative to the guessing level of 33.33 percent.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 4. Mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental groups across

temporal occlusion conditions for the fast (a) and slow (b) bowler transfer tests. Horizontal

line indicates guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above guessing level.

Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

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In relation to hypothesis 3 (transfer), the results for the slow (spin) bowler were

similar as the fast bowler. Factorial ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for group,

F(2, 36) = 15.70, p < .001, ηp2 = .46, and occlusion, F(3, 108) = 37.25, p < .001, ηp

2 = .50,

but no interaction between group and occlusion. Post-hoc tests indicated that the group main

effect was due to significantly superior prediction accuracy by the visuomotor group (M =

55.92 %, SD = 3.84) over the visual-perceptual (M = 48.07 %, SD = 3.84) and control (M =

40.70 %, SD = 3.84) groups, d = 2.04 and 3.96, respectively, as well as significantly superior

prediction accuracy by the visual-perceptual group over the control group, d = 1.91. The

occlusion main effect was due to significantly superior prediction accuracy in the no

occlusion condition (M = 67.30 %, SD = 4.52) compared to the other temporal occlusion

conditions. Table 2 presents one-sample t-tests that show each groups prediction relative to

the guessing level of 33.33 percent.

Performance in training sessions. In relation acquisition during practice, Figure 5

plots mean percentage for prediction accuracy for the visual-perceptual and visuomotor

groups at the ball release temporal occlusion condition, as well as mean percentage accuracy

of components reproduced of the bowling motor pattern across each of the eight training

sessions. Intraclass correlation revealed strong inter- and intra-rater reliability of (r = 0.97)

and (r = 0.98), respectively, for prediction accuracy scores. Intraclass correlation also

revealed strong inter- and intra-rater reliability of (r = 0.95) and (r = 0.96), respectively, for

motor pattern scores.

In relation to prediction accuracy across training sessions, factorial ANOVA revealed

significant main effects for group, F(1, 24) = 16.89, p < .001, ηp2 = .41, session F(7, 168) =

12.17, p < .001, ηp2 = .33, and a group x session interaction, F(7, 168) = 3.17, p < .001, ηp

2 =

.11. Post-hoc tests indicated that the group main effect was due to significantly superior

prediction accuracy by the visuomotor group (M = 60.73 %, SD = 2.84) over the visual-

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perceptual group (M = 52.48 %, SD = 2.84) across all sessions, d = 2.90. The session main

effect was due to training session one (video version) prediction being significantly higher

than all others (M = 75.00 %, SD = 6.30). The source of the interaction was due to the

visuomotor group’s significantly higher prediction accuracy performance curve to the visual-

perceptual group from session five onwards (ps < .05). Prediction accuracy was significantly

above the guessing level of 33.33 percent for all sessions for both groups (ps < .01), except

for session three for the visuomotor group. In relation to reproduction of motor pattern

components, the repeated measures ANOVA revealed a session main effect, F(2.93, 35.22) =

5.60, p = .003, ηp2 = .31. Post-hoc tests indicated there was a significant improvement from

training session one to two, which was maintained across all other sessions.

Figure 5. Performance curve for mean motor pattern reproduction for the visuomotor group

and mean percentage prediction accuracy for the intervention groups at the ball release

temporal occlusion condition relative to training sessions.

The results indicate that club cricket batsman can learn to anticipate a fast bowler’s

action from the earliest advance cue temporal occlusion condition through visual-perceptual

or visuomotor pattern training. Participation in sports-specific practice and matches alone

does not contribute to learning of anticipation as there was no significant improvements for

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the control group. Additive motor pattern practice of the observed fast bowler’s action

coupled with visual-perceptual training facilitates superior transfer to pick-up visual cues for

anticipation from the earliest advance cue temporal occlusion condition across two different

types of bowlers. It appears that club batsmen can reproduce the observed motor pattern very

early during training, but coupled with response accuracy performance improvements across

sessions seems to contribute to maximizing learning and transfer.

Experiment 2

Although experiment 1 provided evidence that visual-perceptual training coupled with

motor pattern training maximized learning and transfer of anticipation, the importance of this

coupling is unclear. Further evidence is necessary to confirm the value of acquiring the motor

pattern that one observes to the improvement of anticipation skill. This can be targeted

through different types of interference tasks as has been done previously in the literature (see

Mulligan et al., 2016; Witt & Proffitt, 2008), but designed for the exemplar sport-specific

task of cricket batting. The purpose of experiment 2 was to interfere with motor pattern

acquisition during visual-perceptual training in order to further determine the additive value

of motor pattern training. Based upon the finding of experiment 1 and previous literature, it

was hypothesized that interfering with motor pattern practice would reduce the benefits to

learning and transfer of anticipation skill relative to the visuomotor training group from

experiment 1.

Method

Participants

Eleven club cricket batsmen from a different district cricket club in the same

competition as those from experiment 1 were recruited for this study to form a visuomotor

pattern interference training group. Like experiment 1, the group was comprised of

approximately half Division 1 and 2 cricket batters (Mage = 19.6, age range: 18 – 22 years).

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Ethical approval was received from the relevant university committee and participants gave

written informed consent.

Experimental Design and Procedures

The pre-, post-, and transfer test phases, as well as the visual-perceptual training

component were exactly the same as per the visuomotor training group in experiment 1. The

main difference in this experiment was that after each practice trial of visual-perceptual

training and feedback, participants were instructed to bowl a different ball type to the one

they just observed. For example, if the visual-perceptual training practice trial was an

outswinger occluded at the ball release temporal occlusion condition, immediately after the

unoccluded feedback trial, participants were informed to bowl an inswinger using their own

inswing bowling action rather than bowl that they had observed. Accordingly, acquisition of

the motor pattern was interfered with in terms of the action and ball type participants

observed. Frequency and duration of training was the same as the intervention groups in

experiment 1.

Dependent Measures and Statistical Analyses

The dependent measures and statistical analyses were essentially the same as for the

visuomotor training group in experiment 1. First, a 2 pre-post-test phase x 4 temporal

occlusion repeated measures ANOVA was run on overall ball type prediction accuracy.

Second, one sample t-tests were run to investigate overall ball type prediction accuracy

relative to the guessing level of 33.33 percent across temporal occlusion for pre-, post- and

transfer-tests. Third, a 2 group (visuomotor interference and visuomotor training from

experiment 1) x 2 test phase x 4 temporal occlusion condition factorial ANOVA with

repeated measures on the last two factors was run, with the acquivelant for the transfer tests.

Finally, a repeated measures ANOVA was run on the reproduction of the motor pattern. For

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repeated measures analyses that violated the assumption of sphericity, a Greenhous-Geisser

correction was applied.

Results and Discussion

Pre- and post-tests. Figure 6 plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the

visuomotor interference training group in relation to pre-post-test phases and temporal

occlusion conditions. The repeated measures ANOVA revealed, no significant testing phase

main effect, F(1, 10) = 1.54, p = .24, ηp2 = .13, nor a temporal occlusion x testing phase

interaction, F(3, 30) = 2.42, p = .08, ηp2 = .19. A significant occlusion main effect was found,

F(1.92, 19.26) = 44.25, p < .001, ηp2 = .81, which was due to superior prediction under the no

occlusion condition (M = 67.04 %, SD = 4.40). Table 3 presents one-sample t-tests that show

prediction relative to the guessing level of 33.33 percent. The factorial ANOVA that

compared the visuomotor training group from experiment 1 to the visuomotor interference

group in this experiment, revealed a group main effect, F(1, 22) = 18.70, p < .001, ηp2 = .46,

which was due to superior overall prediction by the visuomotor training group (M = 51.92 %,

SD = 3.00) over the visuomotor interference group (M = 43.08 %, SD = 2.76). There were no

group x testing time, F(1, 22) = 0.09, p = .765, ηp2 = .004, nor a group x testing time x

occlusion condition, F(3, 66) = 2.30, p = .085, ηp2 = .09, interactions.

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group across test phases and temporal occlusion conditions. Horizontal line indicates

guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above guessing level. Error bars

represent standard error of the mean.

Transfer tests. Figure 7 plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the

visuomotor interference training group in relation to the temporal occlusion conditions for the

fast and slow bowler transfer tests. Table 4 presents one-sample t-tests that show prediction

relative to the guessing level of 33.33 percent. For the fast bowler, the factorial ANOVA

comparing the visuomotor training group from experiment 1 to the visuomotor interference

group in this experiment, revealed a group main effect, F(1, 22) = 13.03, p = .003, ηp2 = .37,

which was due to superior overall prediction by the visuomotor training group from

experiment 1 (M = 60.41 %, SD = 6.46) over the visuomotor interference group (M = 43.18

%, SD = 7.02). There was no group x occlusion interaction, F(3, 66) = 1.12, p = .345, ηp2 =

.049. For the slow bowler, again, the factorial ANOVA revealed a group main effect, F(1, 22)

= 14.55, p = .001, ηp2 = .39, which was due to superior overall prediction by the visuomotor

training group from experiment 1 (M = 55.92 %, SD = 3.78) over the visuomotor interference

group (M = 45.26 %, SD = 4.10). There was no group x occlusion interaction, F(3, 66) =

2.42, p = .07, ηp2 = .09.

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group across temporal occlusion conditions for the fast and slow bowler transfer tests.

Horizontal line indicates guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above

guessing level. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

Performance in training sessions. Figure 8 plots mean percentage prediction

accuracy for the visuomotor interference training group at the ball release temporal occlusion

condition, as well as mean percentage accuracy of components of the bowling motor pattern

reproduced, across the eight training sessions. The repeated measures ANOVA for prediction

accuracy revealed a significant main effect of session, F(7, 70) = 15.87, p < .001, ηp2 = .61.

Post-hoc analysis indicated prediction accuracy in the first training session was significantly

higher than all other sessions, (p < .05). Prediction accuracy was significantly above the

guessing level of 33.33 percent for the first session only (p < .001). The repeated measures

ANOVA for reproduction of the motor pattern revealed no significant improvement across

the sessions, F(7, 70) = 1.21, p = .30, ηp2 = .10.

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Figure 8. Performance curve for mean percentage prediction accuracy at the ball release

temporal occlusion condition and mean motor pattern reproduction for the visuomotor

interference group relative to training sessions.

The results indicate that interfering with reproduction of the observed motor pattern

inhibited learning to pick-up advance cues across pre- to post-test phases in comparison to

visuomotor training in experiment 1. In addition, interfering with motor pattern reproduction

eliminated performance improvement in prediction accuracy during the training sessions to

levels where participants were mostly guessing. Reproduction of the motor pattern also did

not improve across the training sessions, which was the purpose of the experiment,

confirming that participants were not acquiring the bowling pattern they observed. The

interference strategy was effective in preventing acquisition of the observed bowling pattern,

which in turn, had significant detrimental effects on improvement of anticipation skill.

General Discussion

The overall purpose of this dual-experiment investigation was to extend theoretical

knowledge of whether visual-perceptual and motor experience contributes to visual

anticipation in an exemplar striking sport skill of cricket batting. Based upon the reviewed

literature, the theoretical predictions that espoused visual-perceptual and motor experience

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contributions to anticipation, couched within common-coding theory (Prinz, 1997; Schütz-

Bosbach & Prinz, 2007), had been previously tested in performance studies, ‘matched’

visual-perceptual-motor skills, and visual-perceptual anticipation tasks. Experiment 1 went

beyond previous sport expertise literature to test the predictions of common-coding theory, as

well as visual-perceptual and motor experience hypotheses in a learning and transfer design

of a ‘mismatched’ visual-perceptual-motor skill, and a visual-perceptual-motor response

anticipation task. Thereafter, experiment 2 built upon the findings of experiment 1, to

interfere with acquisition of the observed motor pattern, and in turn, probe in a unique sports-

specific manner, the contribution of motor pattern acquisition to the learning and transfer of

visual anticipation skill. Collectively, the findings of these experiments extend theoretical and

applied knowledge.

Visual and motor contributions to learning of anticipation

The key focus to evaluate whether the interventions contributed to learning and

transfer of anticipation in both experiments is based upon improved pick-up of advance

information. This is because early visual information is necessary to circumvent the high time

constraints, as well as deception, encountered in striking sport skills (Morris-Binelli &

Müller, 2017). In relation to experiment 1, the findings relative to learning are consistent with

hypothesis 1, which predicted both visual-perceptual and visuomotor groups would improve

their anticipation based upon advance information across pre-post-tests. It appears that

learning of visual anticipation skill can be equally improved using either visual-perceptual

temporal occlusion training with a sports-specific response or coupled with motor pattern

training of the observed bowler’s action. This is evidenced by improvement in anticipation

across pre-to-post-tests for all temporal occlusion conditions to above guessing level, but

with no differences between intervention groups (see Figure 3). This implies motor pattern

training does not provide additive benefits over visual-perceptual temporal occlusion training

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in relation to learning. The reason could be that visual-perceptual information was profound

in the training to guide pick-up of visual cues for anticipation (see Diaz et al. 2013). This

finding is consistent with the prediction of common-coding theory that visual-perceptual

information can map onto the motor representation to contribute to a complementary

anticipatory motor response (Schütz-Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). Moreover, use of advance

visual-perceptual information based upon visual and/or motor experience is consistent with

previous performance (e.g., Tomeo et al., 2013) and learning (e.g., Mulligan & Hodges,

2014; Mulligan et al., 2016) studies of visual anticipation. Therefore, visual-perceptual

temporal occlusion training alone or coupled to motor pattern training with a complementary

action response is useful for the enhancement of anticipation in a striking sport skill.

Visual and motor contributions to transfer of anticipation

The findings of experiment 1, in relation to transfer to the different fast bowler, is also

consistent with hypothesis 2, which predicted that the visuomotor group would pick-up

earlier advance information in comparison to the visual-perceptual group. Here, unique

evidence is provided that visuomotor pattern training facilitates superior transfer of

anticipation than visual-perceptual training alone. This is evidenced by superior anticipation

by the visuomotor pattern training group over the visual-perceptual training group based upon

pick-up of advance information from the earliest temporal occlusion condition (see Figure

4a). This implies the importance of the additive benefit of motor pattern training to strengthen

the linkage between the embodied motor pattern experiences of what is perceived to the pick-

up of advance cues through visual-perceptual training. Further supportive evidence of the

additive value of motor pattern training is available through prediction accuracy that was

above guessing level from the earliest temporal occlusion condition in the transfer fast

bowler’s test (see Figure 4a). In comparison, the visual-perceptual training group’s prediction

accuracy was only above chance at the ball release temporal occlusion condition (see Figure

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4a). Accordingly, motor pattern training of an observed opponent extends improvements to

anticipation beyond a learning context to facilitate superior transfer to kinematic information

of a bowler not previously experienced.

The superior facilitation of transfer from additive motor pattern training appears to be

in the tight linkage to pick-up visual cue information from the earliest evolving kinematics of

the bowling action. There are several possible explanations for this finding. First, motor

pattern practice of the observed bowling action could have developed a generalizable

‘internal model’ of bowling movement patterns that is tightly linked to the observed

kinematics of bowling patterns to pick-up cues for anticipation (see Diaz et al., 2013; Zago et

al., 2009). Second, motor experience of bowling could map onto observed bowling actions, in

line with the predictions of common-coding theory, to influence how one perceives (Schütz-

Bosbach & Prinz, 2007). Third, additive motor pattern training of the observed bowler’s

action, created a ‘matched’ scenario between motor experience possessed by the batter and

the observed bowler’s movement pattern, which prior to the study was ‘mismatched’ and

where a complementary anticipatory response is required. Collectively, this progresses

understanding beyond existing literature on visual and motor contributions to anticipation

(e.g., Colling et al., 2014; Mulligan & Hodges, 2014) by demonstrating transfer of

anticipation to a unique observed movement pattern can be facilitated by developing a

‘match’ between the performer and observer’s motor patterns.

The findings of experiment 1, in relation to transfer to a different slow bowler, was

not consistent with hypothesis 3, which predicted that none of the groups would pick-up

advance information. Here, again, unique and further compelling evidence is provided of the

additive value of motor pattern practice over visual-perceptual training alone, to the transfer

of improved anticipation. This is evidenced by superior anticipation of the visuomotor pattern

training group over the visual-perceptual training group from the earliest advance cue

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temporal occlusion condition in the slow bowler’s action (see Figure 4b). Although the

visual-perceptual training group could anticipate above chance at ball release, the visuomotor

training group predicted above chance from the earliest temporal occlusion condition (see

Figure 4b). This implies the embodied motor pattern of a fast bowler’s action strengthens the

linkage between pick-up of advance cues through visual-perceptual training, which transfers

to a slow bowler who uses subtle differences in their bowling action. The reasons for these

benefits could be as mentioned earlier in terms of development of generalizable ‘internal

model’, mapping of motor experience to observed visual-perceptual information, as well as

‘closer matching’ of performer and opponent motor patterns. This is important because it

identifies that the motor pattern component of training can benefit the adaptability of visual

anticipation to different bowler movement patterns, which is representative of facing multiple

bowlers during competition. Again, these findings build upon existing literature (e.g., Colling

et al., 2014; Mulligan & Hodges, 2014) to demonstrate that the additive value of motor

training, which ‘matches’ performer motor experience to that of the opponent, has benefits

beyond the learning context.

Advancement of theoretical knowledge

Collectively, these findings relative to transfer have important theoretical significance

for common-coding theory, embodied visual-perception and motor simulation. That is, an

acquired motor pattern of an opponent can transfer to influence superior anticipation

capability when faced with unique opponent movement patterns not previously experienced.

There is evidence in the transfer of anticipation sport literature to support this conclusion,

being that what is acquired in one similar context can facilitate equal performance to experts

in another similar context, such as transfer of anticipation by karate experts to anticipate a

taekwondo opponent to an equal level as taekwondo experts (Rosalie & Müller, 2014). The

locus of this transfer capability could be the generalized application of motor experience to

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facilitate superior anticipation. As mentioned above, this might occur through strengthening

of the linkage between initial visual-perceptual kinematic cues of the bowler to the embodied

motor pattern to a complementary response, possibly through an ‘internal model’ (Diaz et al.,

2013; Zago et al., 2009). Therefore, the evidence presented here suggests there is rich

potential to further understanding of embodiment and visual-perception (Witt, 2017b) as well

as motor simulation (Wilson & Knoblich, 2005) through investigation of transfer.

Tracking performance improvement during training sessions, as well as interfering

with motor pattern acquisition provides further insights into the mechanism underpinning

visual and motor experience contributions to anticipation. In experiment 1, although there

was an initial decrease in performance response accuracy after session one for both groups,

which is likely due to the more demanding point-light display in comparison to the video

stimulus (see Abernethy et al., 2001), performance of the visuomotor training group

improved significantly in comparison to the visual-perceptual training group (see Figure 5).

Furthermore, motor pattern acquisition by the visuomotor group was at a high level to begin

with and improved further to be maintained across all training sessions (see Figure 5).

Accordingly, it appears for the visuomotor training group that during performance, a tight

linkage was being forged between visual-perceptual temporal occlusion training, motor

pattern reproduction and a complementary response. This tight linkage could have been

mediated through the development of an experience-based ‘internal model’ (Diaz et al.,

2013). The established tight linkage translated not only to learning benefits, but went beyond

this to transfer to kinematic patterns that were not previously experienced during the training

sessions. This is consistent with previous literature that has reported the value of visuomotor

training to improve performance response accuracy over visual-perceptual training alone

(Mulligan et al., 2016). In experiment 2, when motor pattern acquisition was interfered from

its coupling with visual-perceptual temporal occlusion training, and the complementary

105

response, prediction accuracy performance decreased after the first session with no

improvements thereafter. Unsurprisingly, motor pattern reproduction was lower in

experiment 2, than experiment 1, and did not improve during the training sessions (see

Figures 5 and 8). This had a profound negative effect, with the experiment 2 visuomotor

interference training group not improving across pre-to-post-tests of the same fast bowler

kinematics (learning) (see Figure 6), nor was their prediction above chance for different

bowlers they had not previously experienced (transfer) (see Figure 7). The reason for this

could be that an ‘internal model’ was not developed and that motor experience of the

performer did not tightly ‘match’ the opponent, as was sufficiently developed in the

visuomotor group in experiment 1. Therefore, it can be argued that the interference task

decoupled the linkage between the embodied motor pattern, visual-perceptual training and a

complementary response. This implies that learning the motor pattern of what one observes

makes a vital additive contribution to improve anticipation in a striking sport skill.

Practical Application, Conclusion, Limitations and Future Research

The findings from this dual-experiment paper have implications for practitioners such

as the sport psychologist, skill acquisition specialist, sports coaches across the skill

continuum, and high performance sport staff. First, video-based temporal occlusion training

can be easily structured around athlete standard practice to improve anticipation skill. For

example, visual-perceptual training equipment used in our experiments can be set-up in a

sport facility with athletes required to rotate from on field practice tasks to temporal

occlusion training or done through a mobile application. This is important because the

common focus of athlete development is on improving technical execution and fitness, which

does not develop anticipation skill. Second, motor pattern training of the observed opponent

movement pattern coupled with temporal occlusion training can facilitate improvements to

anticipation across learning and transfer contexts. This is important because athletes do not

106

compete against a single opponent, but rather multiple opponents such as cricket bowlers or

baseball pitchers, who have slightly different techniques to achieve the same motor skill (e.g.,

bowling an outswinger in cricket or pitching a fastball in baseball). Third, athletes should be

encouraged to practice and learn motor skills beyond their chosen specialization in a sport,

which can contribute to development of their visual anticipation skill. For example, baseball

and cricket batters should also be encouraged to learn how to bowl and pitch, respectively.

Furthermore, sampling a variety of sports may provide strong embodied movement patterns

to develop anticipation skill in the eventual target sport. This may also provide a motor skill

foundation to broaden participation within and between sports.

A potential limitation is that an active control group was not included in experiment 1.

Such a group could be required to watch only the no occlusion point-light displays or videos

of cricket matches, which would cancel out possible influence of placebo effect to

improvement of anticipation. There is evidence, however, to indicate that placebo and no-

practice control groups do not improve on post-tests after receiving anticipation training (e.g.,

Milazzo, Farrow, & Fournier, 2014; Williams, Ward, Knowles, & Smeeton, 2002).

Furthermore, it is difficult to convince semi-professional club players, such as those in our

experiments, to participate as “active” controls. This is because club players and their

coaches want to be involved in an assessment (occlusion test) to determine their anticipation

capability and/or how anticipation can be improved. Another potential limitation was the

rating system for motor pattern reproduction. The described grip rating is consistently used to

bowl all three ball types used in our experiments, which may have inflated the base

percentage score that could be achieved. Future research could omit component one and

focus on components two to five of bowling technique that may vary more across bowling

actions or provide a more intricate analysis of the grip such as angle of the seam.

107

In conclusion, this paper advanced theoretical understanding of visual and motor

experience contributions to anticipation in an exemplar striking sport skill. Combined visual

and motor experience appears important to maximize learning and transfer of anticipation

skill, rather than training pick-up of advance information on its own. Future research could

expand upon our design to include a retention test to determine the robustness of the two

interventions, as well as in-situ temporal vision occlusion glasses or a performance test to

determine if different modes of training transfer to field-based settings. This remains a

challenge for multiple reasons including logistics and accessibility to participant time

(Müller, Brenton, & Rosalie, 2015). In addition, future research could investigate whether

variability if the acquisition of the observed bowling pattern is related to the capability to

transfer based upon principles of variability of practice that form part of Schema Theory (see

Magill & Anderson, 2017). Collectively, a foundation exists to further test theoretical

predictions within applied tasks that can guide athlete development across the skill

continuum.

108

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Tables

Table 1

Experiment 1 Pre-Post-Test Chance Comparison T-Tests for Experimental Groups

Group Pre-Test Post-Test

BFI FFI R NO BFI FFI R NO

VP t(12) =

0.30,

p =

.765

t(12) =

1.25,

p =

.237

t(12) =

2.55,

p = .025

t(12) =

7.88,

p <

.001

t(12) =

5.82,

p < .001

t(12) =

7.50,

p <

.001

t(12) =

4.62,

p <

.001

t(12) =

12.84, p

< .001

VM t(12) =

0.45,

p =

.655

t(12) =

0.71,

p =

.488

t(12) =

1.51,

p = .156

t(12) =

8.84,

p <

.001

t(12) =

4.18,

p =

.001

t(12) =

5.68,

p <

.001

t(12) =

4.71,

p =

.001

t(12) =

11.72, p

< .001

CON t(12) =

1.13,

p =

.279

t(12) =

-0.86, p

= .406

t(12) =

0.635, p

= .537

t(12) =

9.17,

p <

.001

t(12) =

-.31,

p =

.760

t(12) =

0.43,

p =

.672

t(12) =

0.84,

p =

.415

t(12) =

4.94,

p < .001

Note. Visual-Perceptual (VP), Visuomotor (VM), Control (CON), Back-Foot Impact (BFI),

Front-Foot Impact (FFI), Ball Release (R), No Occlusion (NO).

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Table 2

Experiment 1 Transfer Test Chance Comparison T-Tests for Experimental Groups

Group Fast Bowler Slow Bowler


VP t(12) =

1.95,

p =

.075

t(12) =

1.64,

p =

.125

t(12) =

4.43,

p =

.001

t(12) =

8.79,

p < .001

t(12) =

1.59,

p = .137

t(12) =

.84,

p =

.415

t(12) =

4.42,

p =

.001

t(12) =

7.12,

p < .001

VM t(12) =

3.78,

p =

.003

t(12) =

3.87,

p =

.002

t(12) =

3.82,

p =

.002

t(12) =

12.17, p

< .001

t(12) =

3.63,

p =

.003

t(12) =

4.50,

p =

.001

t(12) =

4.62,

p =

.001

t(12) =

10.93, p

< .001

CON t(12) =

-.31,

p =

.760

t(12) =

.14,

p =

.888

t(12) =

-3.42, p

= .005

t(12) =

6.74,

p < .001

t(12) =

-1.19, p

= .252

t(12) =

0.18,

p =

.853

t(12) =

1.43,

p =

.173

t(12) =

10.90, p

< .001

Note. Visual-Perceptual (VP), Visuomotor (VM), Control (CON), Back-Foot Impact (BFI),

Front-Foot Impact (FFI), Ball Release (R), No Occlusion (NO).

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Table 3

Experiment 2 Pre-Post Test Chance Comparison T-Tests

Group Pre-Test Post-Test


VMI t(10) =

.61,

p =

.552

t(10) =

.97,

p =

.351

t(10) =

.32,

p =

.756

t(10) =

10.86, p

< .001

t(10) =

1.00,

p = .340

t(10) =

.17,

p =

.867

t(10) =

.001,

p =

.999

t(10) =

17.33, p

< .001

Note. Visuomotor Interference (VMI), Back-Foot Impact (BFI), Front-Foot Impact (FFI),

Ball Release (R), No Occlusion (NO).

Table 4

Experiment 2 Transfer Test Chance Comparison T-Tests

Group Fast Bowler Slow Bowler


VMI t(10) =

.96,

p =

.360

t(10) =

-.20,

p =

.840

t(10) =

-.42,

p =

.677

t(10) =

6.69,

p <

.001

t(10) =

1.49,

p = .167

t(10) =

.61,

p =

.552

t(10) =

1.32,

p = .215

t(10) =

21.49, p

< .001

Note. Visuomotor Interference (VMI), Back-Foot Impact (BFI), Front-Foot Impact (FFI),

Ball Release (R), No Occlusion (NO).

118

CHAPTER 5

Visual-perceptual training with acquisition of the observed motor pattern improves

anticipation and benefits batting average in emerging expert batsmen

Revised Version

Abstract

Objectives: To determine whether point-light display training with motor practice of the

observed bowler’s action improves anticipation and batting average in emerging expert

cricket batsmen.

Design: Pre-and-post-test control group design with transfer tests.

Methods: Twelve emerging expert batsmen from a high performance state cricket squad were

equally randomised into intervention and control groups. They were pre-and-post tested on a

video temporal occlusion test of a fast bowler, as well as transfer video temporal occlusion

tests of different fast and slow bowlers. The intervention (visuomotor) group received two

sessions of point-light display temporal occlusion training with motor practice of the

observed bowler’s action over a four week period. The control group participated only in the

testing phases. Batting average before, during, and after the study were recorded for both

groups.

Results: The visuomotor group, but not the control group, significantly improved their

capability to anticipate the fast bowler across pre-to-post-tests based upon pre-ball flight

information (advance cues). The visuomotor group, but not the control group, transferred

their learning to anticipate based upon pre-ball flight information across different fast and

slow (spin) bowlers not previously experienced in the study. The visuomotor group had a

higher batting average than the control group during the study.

Conclusions: Point-light display temporal occlusion training with motor practice of the

observed bowler’s action can improve anticipation of emerging expert batsmen in laboratory-

119

based tests. The improvements to anticipation by the intervention group transferred to a better

batting average than the control group.

Keywords; Visual anticipation, visual-perceptual training, motor pattern acquisition,

temporal occlusion, cricket batting.

120

Visual-perceptual training with acquisition of the observed motor pattern improves

anticipation and benefits batting average in emerging expert batsmen

Introduction

Visual anticipation is well established as crucial for successful performance in high-

speed striking sports skills such as baseball (Fadde, 2016) and cricket (Renshaw &

Fairweather, 2000) batting. This is because extreme time constraints are created when a

bowler delivers a ball at high velocity limiting the batman’s time to use information from ball

flight alone to prepare and execute a stroke. Experts (established international and state

players) are superior at dealing with this high time constraint than lesser skilled players, due

to the pick-up of visual cues from their opponent’s kinematics before the ball is in flight

(known as advance cues) (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Pick-up of advance kinematic

cues allows experts to anticipate future ball location and guide positioning of their lower

body in order to strike the ball(Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Whilst an extensive body of

literature exists regarding the superior capability of experts over lesser skilled players to use

advance kinematic information, there is less evidence of whether anticipation can be trained

(Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Finding ways to improve anticipation, particularly for

emerging expert athletes, is of high importance to coaches and sports science support staff

who invest significant time and money to prepare athletes for competition.

A common method used to test and train anticipation is the video-based temporal

occlusion paradigm (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Video simulation footage of an

opponent such as a baseball pitcher or cricket bowler executing different pitches or ball types

is filmed. The footage is then edited to place a black video frame at a critical point(s) in the

opponent’s kinematics, for example, the instant of ball release in a cricket bowler’s action to

control the time or duration of visual information from the bowler’s action that is visible to

the performer (batter). The footage can be converted to a dynamic point-light display, where

121

points-of-light are placed on anatomical landmarks of the opponent with a black background,

allowing presentation of pure kinematic information void of colour, contour or shape

(Abernethy, Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001). Participants can respond to anticipate from video or

point-light displays with either a written answer in a booklet or a sport-specific motor action.

When used for training, feedback is commonly provided through a repeated un-occluded

version of the previous occluded trial. Experts, but not lesser skilled players, are capable of

using advance information from a video simulation to anticipate above chance (Abernethy et

al., 2001). Experts are also capable of using advance information from a point-light display in

order to anticipate above chance, but prediction is more difficult resulting in poorer

performance than compared to a video display(Abernethy et al., 2001).

Temporal occlusion video or point-light display training is not to our knowledge

currently a frequent part of high performance athlete or cricket training. For example, cricket

batters practice their strokes by facing bowlers in practice nets, but spend considerably more

time fine-tuning their stroke execution by facing a ball projection machine that does not

present advance cues (Müller, Brenton, & Rosalie, 2015; Pinder, Renshaw, Davids, &

Kerherv, 2011). The lack of exposure to video temporal occlusion and difficulty associated

with anticipating a point-light display need to be taken into consideration when designing

occlusion training. This means progressive challenge and difficulty of occlusion training need

to be incorporated across training sessions. Task difficulty has been progressively increased

by presenting a ball flight occlusion condition first followed by ball release occlusion

conditions, thereafter randomised trials of both (Müller, Gurisik, Hecimovich, Harbaugh, &

Vallence, 2017). Similarly, Gray (Gray, 2017) progressively adjusted task difficult by first

varying speed of pitch types to one location, and second, varying pitch types and locations.

Both these progressive challenge approaches resulted in improved visual-perceptual-motor

skill (Gray, 2017; Müller et al., 2017).

122

The majority of previous studies that have used video temporal occlusion training

have reported improved anticipation of novices in tennis groundstrokes,(Singer et al., 1994),

squash strokes,(Abernethy, Wood, & Parks, 1999), and field-hockey goalkeeping,(Williams,

Ward, & Chapman, 2003), as well as in skilled players in tennis groundstrokes,(Smeeton,

Hodges, Williams, & Ward, 2005), field hockey goalkeeping,(Müller et al., 2017), and

cricket batting (Smeeton, Hibbert, Stevenson, Cumming, & Williams, 2013). These studies

indicate that temporal occlusion training can improve anticipation to the level of the skilled

athlete, but research is needed to determine whether anticipation can be improved in

emerging expert athletes. In addition, there is very little evidence of whether improvements to

anticipation transfer to an in-situ test or competition performance. Few studies have reported

that temporal occlusion training transferred to improvement in an in-situ test with skilled,

(Müller et al., 2017; Williams, Ward, Knowles, & Smeeton, 2002), and expert (Hopwood,

Mann, Farrow, & Nielsen, 2011) athletes, but there is no evidence to our knowledge of its

benefits to competition performance.

Recently, researchers have begun to investigate the value of visual-perceptual and

motor training to improve visual anticipation. For example, Mulligan and Hodges, (Mulligan

& Hodges, 2014) compared visual-perceptual and motor training to improvement of dart

location anticipation in novices. They found that two motor training groups, who practiced

throwing darts with, and without-vision, significantly improved their capability to anticipate

dart location on a temporal occlusion test to a superior level than a group that learned through

visual-perceptual training by observation alone. This indicates that acquisition or possession

of the motor pattern that one observes contributes to anticipation, which is consistent with the

findings of previous anticipation performance studies (Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi,

2008). Striking skills such as cricket batting, unlike darts, is an open skill where the batter has

to anticipate a bowler, but does not possess the movement pattern of the bowler. Brenton,

123

Müller and Dempsey (2018, under review) compared the value of point-light display

temporal occlusion training on its own, as well as coupled with motor practice of the

observed bowler’s action, in club cricket batters. They found both training modes improved

anticipation (learning) on a video temporal occlusion test of a fast bowler, but transfer of

improved anticipation to a video temporal occlusion test of different bowlers (fast and spin)

was superior for the group that received motor practice of the observed bowler’s action.

The purpose of this study was to investigate: (a) whether point-light display temporal

occlusion training, with motor practice of the observed bowler’s action, could improve

learning and transfer of visual anticipation in emerging expert cricket batsmen, and (b)

whether anticipation training transferred to benefit competition batting average in the

intervention group when the training was delivered. It was hypothesised that: (i) the

intervention group who received point-light display temporal occlusion training with motor

pattern training, but not the no-practice control group, would improve anticipation across the

pre-post-test and transfer test bowlers, and (ii) the intervention group would have a higher

batting average than the control group in matches played during the period the study was

conducted.

Methods

Twelve emerging expert specialist male cricket batsmen from a high performance

state cricket squad in Australia were recruited and equally randomised into two groups. State

cricket is below the national level in Australia. Accordingly, as the sport participation skill

level increases there is a smaller pool of athletes (Müller et al., 2015). None of the batsmen

had played first class (state) cricket. The groups consisted of a visuomotor pattern training (n

= 6; M age = 23.5 ± 2.75 years) and a control (n = 6; M age = 22.2 ± 3.01 years). University

ethics approval was obtained and written informed consent from participants was provided.

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The study consisted of a pre- and post-test control group design with transfer tests. A

video-based temporal occlusion test previously reported to demonstrate fine-grained

discriminant validity across skilled to expert cricket batsmen was used in the pre-post-tests

(Brenton, Müller, & Mansingh, 2016; Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006). The test

consisted of 48 trials, composed of 3 ball types x 4 temporal occlusion conditions x 4 repeats.

The ball types were: (a) a full length outswinger (a ball that lands closer to and swings away

from the batter), (b) a full length inswinger (a ball that lands closer to and swings in towards

the batter), and (c) a short length ball (a ball that lands closer to the bowler and bounces

higher). The temporal occlusion conditions employed were those that presented only advance

information of the bowler’s action until: (i) back-foot impact (BFI), (ii) front-foot impact

(FFI), and (iii) ball release, with a no occlusion control condition that displayed the bowler’s

run-up, action and all ball flight. Participants viewed three unoccluded trials of all ball types

and undertook two temporal occlusion practice trials to familiarise themselves prior to the

test.

A Dell Latitude laptop (model 2009) and Epson projector (model EMP1700) were

used to present the test in an indoor cricket venue. A batting crease was constructed in front

of the projector screen (1.4 m x 1.4 m) using masking tape on the floor with a taped

perpendicular line from the crease towards the screen from the middle of plastic cricket

stumps. The batting crease location was scaled to a viewing angle requiring the batsman to

stand 6 m from the screen to represent match conditions. Participants were required to watch

the footage and anticipate by playing a batting stroke (sport-specific action) corresponding to

the ball type. A stroke to the right or left side of the perpendicular line and backward of the

batting crease indicated anticipation of the outswinger, inswinger and short ball, respectively

for a right-handed batter. These movements are reversed for a left-handed batter. The test

video together with the response of the participant were simultaneously recorded using a

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standard 25Hz Sony video camera (model NEX-VG10) for later coding. Participants

undertook each testing session independently of each other. The transfer tests involved video-

based temporal occlusion of a different fast bowler and a slow (spin) bowler, with the spin

bowler test previously used in the literature (Müller et al., 2006). The trial matrix for each of

the transfer tests were the same as the pre-post-tests, that is, 3 ball types x 4 temporal

occlusion conditions x 4 repeats, totalling 48 trials, with their order of delivery

counterbalanced within each experimental group.

The intervention group received temporal occlusion point-light display training

coupled with practice of the bowling pattern they observed (visuomotor pattern training) (see

Figure 1: Supplement). The control group only completed the pre-post and transfer test

phases. Both groups participated in their standard cricket practice and competed in matches

during the cricket season. The visuomotor intervention group undertook training sessions of

approximately 15 minutes duration twice weekly for a period of four weeks. The training

consisted of different versions of the same ball types from the fast bowler used in the

temporal occlusion pre- and post-tests. A point-light display was used in training as it has

been reported in previous research that experts only require pure kinematic information to

anticipate (Abernethy et al., 2001). The training matrix consisted of 3 ball types x 3 temporal

occlusion conditions x 4 repeats, totalling 36 trials. The training sessions were structured to

progressively challenge participants and guard against participant disengagement if the task

was too difficult early in the training period. Training session one was comprised of video

stimuli and the remaining seven training sessions consisted of point-light display stimuli.

Training sessions one to six were administered in blocked trials in sequential order from no

occlusion to pre-bounce temporal occlusion to ball release temporal occlusion. Each of the

occlusion conditions contained an equal number of trials. The remaining sessions (seven and

eight) were comprised of a randomised version of the three temporal occlusion conditions. In

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every practice trial the visuomotor training group viewed the point-light display stimuli,

played a sport-specific batting stroke, received feedback through an unoccluded version of

the ball type for trials that were occluded and finally, with a modified softer cricket ball,

bowled the ball they had viewed in the trial on an indoor cricket pitch. The standard 25Hz

video camera was used to capture practice of the bowling pattern, which was later

qualitatively analysed to determine acquisition of the observed motor pattern (Knudson &

Morrison, 2002).

Mean percentage prediction accuracy of overall ball type anticipation was the main

dependent variable. This was calculated at each of the temporal occlusion conditions across

all of the test phases. First, a 2 group x 2 pre-post-test phase x 4 temporal occlusion factorial

ANOVA was conducted to investigate learning. Second, a 2 group x 2 bowler x 4 temporal

occlusion factorial ANOVA was conducted to investigate each group’s capability to transfer

learning to the fast and slow bowlers. Tukey and pairwise post-hoc tests were used to explore

main and interaction effects. Third, one sample t-tests were used to determine whether

prediction accuracy for the three-choice task was above, at or below the guessing level of

33.33 percent. Fourth, inter- and intra-rater reliability was performed on all participants in the

test and training phases for the experimental groups in accordance with Portney and Watkins

(Portney & Watkins, 2009). Cohen’s d effect sizes were also calculated to explore selected

between group differences.

Performance improvement during the training sessions was also examined through

two dependent variables. First, mean percentage prediction accuracy summed across ball

types at the ball release temporal occlusion condition (advance cue condition), and second,

mean percentage accuracy of motor pattern reproduction of the observed bowler’s action,

were calculated. Two statistical tests were conducted on the prediction accuracy data: (i) 2

group x 8 session repeated measures ANOVA, and, (ii) one sample t-tests to determine

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prediction accuracy in relation to 33.33 percent guessing level. To determine participant

reproduction of the observed bowler’s motor pattern, five key components of the bowling

action were qualitatively analysed through comparison of participant bowling trials to the

observed training bowler stimuli that included (see Figure 2: Supplement): (i) grip of the ball

(relative to the video of training session one), (ii) position of the non-bowling front-arm, (iii)

wrist position of the bowling hand, (iv) follow through of the bowling arm, and (v) ball

trajectory (Portus, Sinclair, Burke, Moore, & Farhart, 2000). The first three components were

qualitatively assessed at back-foot impact, front-foot impact and ball release, whilst the

remaining two components were analysed after the ball was released, as these were the times

during the bowling action when they were evident (Glazier, Paradisis, & Cooper, 2000). Each

component was allocated a 1 for attainment or 0 for non-attainment, with the total score

compiled and converted to a percentage of overall reproduction of the observed bowling

motor pattern. The sum of the total score for each participant was averaged across the group

for each training session. A repeated measures ANOVA was run to compare motor pattern

reproduction accuracy score across the training sessions. Inter-rater (one research assistant)

and intra-rater (the researcher) reliability was performed on all dependent variables for all

participants. For pre-post-transfer tests this included 2304 trials, for the training sessions this

included 576 trials for anticipation at ball release occlusion and 1728 trials for motor pattern

reproduction. Alpha level was set at 0.05 for statistical tests and adjusted to .01 for chance

comparisons to guard against familywise error.

The number of innings batted and runs scored by participants in the experimental

groups during the same time period were sourced for the season prior to, season during the

study period, and season after the study, from the official website for cricket match statistics

in Australia (www.mycricket.com.au). Mean batting average was calculated for each of the

experimental groups with a 2 group x 3 time factorial ANOVA run to compare between-

http://www.mycricket.com.au/

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group match batting performance. A t-test was run to check whether batting average was

different prior to the study.

Results

Fig.3 plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the visuomotor and control

groups in relation to the temporal occlusion conditions across pre- and post-test phases.

Intraclass correlation revealed strong inter- and intra-rater reliability of (r = 0.93) and (r =

0.98), respectively.

Figure 3. Mean overall percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental

groups across temporal occlusion conditions for pre- and post-test phases. Horizontal line

indicates guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicates prediction above guessing level.

Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

Factorial ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for group, F(1, 10 = 63.66, p <

0.001) and a group x testing phase interaction, F(1, 10 = 10.24, p = 0.009). Pairwise

comparisons indicated that prediction accuracy of the visuomotor group was significantly

superior to the control group in the post-test (p < .05), with no between-group differences at

any temporal occlusion condition in the pre-test (p > .05). Effect sizes reflected the superior

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prediction of the visuomotor group at the advance cue temporal occlusion conditions in the

post-test, BFI (d = 2.66, p = .001), FFI (d = 1.95, p = .007), and R (d = 3.22, p < .001). One

sample t-tests indicated that neither group were significantly above the guessing level of

33.33 percent at the advance cue temporal occlusion conditions of BFI, FFI and R in the pre-

test. The visuomotor group improved their prediction accuracy in the post-test to significantly

above the guessing level at BFI, FFI, and R temporal occlusion conditions (p < .01), whereas

the control group remained at guessing level. Both groups were significantly above guessing

level in the no-occlusion temporal occlusion condition in the pre- and post-tests (p < 0.01).

Fig.4 (a) and (b), respectively, plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the

visuomotor and control group in relation to temporal occlusion conditions for the fast and

slow bowler transfer tests.

(a)

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(b)

Figure 4. Mean overall percentage accuracy of anticipation for the experimental

groups across temporal occlusion conditions for the fast (a) and slow (b) bowler transfer tests.

Horizontal line indicates guessing level of 33.33% and asterisks indicate prediction above

guessing level. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

For the transfer bowler tests, factorial ANOVA revealed a significant group main

effect, F(1, 10 = 147.31, p < 0.001), with no significant three-way group x bowler x occlusion

interaction, F(3, 30) = .46, p = .710). A Tukey post-hoc test indicated that prediction accuracy

of the visuomotor group was significantly superior to the control group overall across

temporal occlusion conditions and bowlers. Effect sizes reflected the superior prediction of

the visuomotor group at the advance cue temporal occlusion conditions, BFI (Fast: d = 2.10,

p = .005, Slow: d = 2.75, p = .001), FFI (Fast: d = 2.08, p = .005, Slow: d = 2.50, p = .001),

and R (Fast, d = 3.54, p < .001, Slow: d = 2.75, p = .001). One sample t-tests indicated only

the visuomotor group predicted significantly above the guessing level of 33.33 percent across

all temporal occlusion conditions for fast and slow (spin) bowlers (p < 0.01). In contrast, the

control group predicted above the guessing level only at the no occlusion condition (p =

0.005).

131

Figure 5 plots mean percentage accuracy of anticipation for the visuomotor group at

the ball release temporal occlusion condition and motor pattern reproduction accuracy

relative to the training sessions. Intraclass correlation revealed strong inter- and intra-rater

reliability of (r = 0.95) and (r = 0.97), respectively, for prediction accuracy scores. Intraclass

correlation also revealed strong inter- and intra-rater reliability of (r = 0.93) and (r = 0.97),

respectively, for motor pattern reproduction scores.

Figure 5. Performance curve for percentage prediction accuracy for the visuomotor

group at the ball release temporal occlusion condition (response) and motor pattern

reproduction accuracy for the visuomotor group relative to training sessions.

In relation to the prediction accuracy response, repeated measures ANOVA revealed a

significant session effect, F(7, 35 = 5.35, p < 0.001). Post-hoc tests indicated that training

session 1 and 8 were significantly higher than training sessions 2, 4 and 5 (p < 0.05). In

relation to reproduction of the motor pattern, repeated measures ANOVA revealed a

significant session effect, F(7, 35 = 8.82, p < 0.001). Post-hoc tests indicated that training

session 1 was significantly lower than all other sessions (p < 0.05).

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The visuomotor and control mean batting averages were 39.33 and 31.41 (prior to the

study), 52.94 and 26.14 (during the study), 34.50 and 23.55 (after the study) (see Table 1:

Supplement for further statistics). T-test indicated that batting average was not different

between-groups prior to the study, t(10 = .587, p = .570). Factorial ANOVA revealed a

significant main effect for group, F(1, 10 = 6.55, p = .028), but no significant main effect of

time or interaction between group and time. A large effect size was found between the

intervention and control group batting averages during the study (d = 1.18).

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to determine whether visual-perceptual training with

acquisition of the observed bowler’s action could improve anticipation in emerging expert

cricket batsmen. The findings supported hypothesis one that visuomotor training improved

learning and transfer of anticipation based upon advance information, with no improvement

for the control group. The findings also supported hypothesis two that the intervention group

had a higher batting average than the control group.

The evidence presented here that temporal occlusion training can improve the

anticipation skill of emerging expert batsmen goes beyond previous literature that has

reported such benefits across novice to skilled players (eg., Singer et al., 1994; Smeeton et

al., 2013). This is important as it indicates that emerging expert batters are still developing

their visual anticipation skill and there is capacity using well-established methods to

accelerate this learning process. It may seem peculiar that emerging expert batsmen could not

use advance kinematic information to anticipate above chance in the pre-test, when there is

evidence to indicate that experts are superior to less skilled players at using this information

to anticipate. Closer inspection of a previous cricket batting anticipation study, however,

indicates that their highly skilled sample included well established international and state

(first class) batters that would have increased prediction to above guessing level,(Müller et

133

al., 2006), compared to this study where the skill level of participants was lower. In addition,

more recently, due to workload restrictions on bowlers in an attempt to prevent injury

(Orchard et al., 2015; Schaefer, O’Dwyer, Ferdinands, & Edwards, 2018), batters are

restricted in their opportunity to face bowler’s in standard cricket practice that results in

frequent exposure to traditional ball projection machines that do not provide advance

kinematic cues (Müller et al., 2015; Pinder et al., 2011). Therefore, temporal occlusion

training can cater to these restrictions within standard practice to challenge and improve the

pick-up of advance cues from opponents’ kinematics in emerging expert batters.

Evidence was presented in this study that both learning and transfer of anticipation

could be improved in emerging expert cricket batsmen. In terms of learning, point-light

temporal occlusion training with acquisition of the observed bowler’s motor pattern not only

improved pick-up of cues at the critical point of ball release,(Müller et al., 2006), but from

the beginning of and across the entire bowling delivery stride (BFI to FFI to R) (see Fig. 3).

This is vital to provide batters with extra time to determine the ball’s length (landing

position) and direction (swing) in order to circumvent the high time constraint of ball velocity

to guide positioning of their lower body to strike the ball (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). In

relation to transfer, an important consideration is that batters face different bowler’s in

matches. The training conducted in this study again benefited pick-up of kinematic cues for

anticipation across the entire bowling delivery stride for a fast bowler and a slow (spin)

bowler not previously experienced by the intervention group (see Fig. 4a and b).

Furthermore, benefits to learning and transfer occurred on video displays after point-light-

display training, indicating that exposure to stimuli void of contour, shape and colour can

generalise to improvement of anticipation to stimuli that is like the in-situ setting.

Collectively, this implies that coupling point-light display temporal occlusion training with

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acquisition of the observed bowler’s motor pattern has benefits to anticipation of more than

one bowler.

The results related to learning and transfer are consistent with the findings of Brenton,

Müller and Dempsey (2018, under review) who found that club batsmen also improved their

capability to anticipate (learning) and transfer to different bowlers. These benefits to learning

and transfer could be due to a tight linkage established between visual and motor pattern

experience. To this, motor pattern reproduction data in this study indicated that the

intervention group acquired the opposing bowler’s action after the first session, likely

because they are emerging expert players who can easily mimic an action. Possession of the

motor pattern whilst still improving anticipation responses across sessions may have

strengthened the coupling between visual and motor experience that benefited improvement

to anticipation (see Fig. 5). Indeed, Brenton et al. (2018) also found that interfering with

acquisition of the observed motor pattern whilst receiving visual-perceptual training, impeded

improvements to anticipation. In this study, a tight coupling could have facilitated pick-up of

information from the earliest temporal occlusion condition (BFI), which corresponded with

the beginning of the bowler’s delivery action (or kinematics). Thereafter, the forged tight

coupling could have been transferred to a different fast and slow (spin) bowler, both of which

use similar kinematics across BFI to FFI, with subtle variation of the bowling arm and wrist

to the point of ball release.

The progressive challenge through training session difficulty also appears to be an

important factor in performance improvements that led to learning and transfer benefits.

There was a sharp decline in prediction from the first video occlusion training session to the

second session where point-light display training begun, which is consistent with existing

literature that point-light displays are harder to anticipate (Abernethy et al., 2001). Across

sessions four to six, however, there was an increase in prediction indicating that participants

135

were improving their performance to anticipate from pure kinematic information to a level

where session eight was no different to session one. This type of non-linear performance

curve is common in the motor learning literature and indicates that participants can regress

before they improve practice performance, which can benefit learning (Chow, Davids,

Button, & Renshaw, 2016). This is important for scientists and practitioners, who need to

consider that learning and transfer are not necessarily facilitated through linear performance

improvement during practice sessions. Furthermore, improvement in the point-light display

performance curve translated to video stimuli, indicating that improved prediction of pure

kinematics improved anticipation on real batting type stimuli.

Beyond improvements on video temporal occlusion tests of anticipation, evidence of

transfer from point-light display temporal occlusion training to batting competition

performance was found. The significantly higher batting average of the intervention group, in

comparison to the control group, during the period the study was implemented, indicates that

the training had some immediate benefit to competition batting performance. This is valuable

information for coaches and high performance staff as they are constantly searching for

methods to accelerate emerging expert athlete skill development so that it transfers to

competition. It may be argued that there are multiple factors such as quality of the pitches and

opposition bowlers that could influence batting average. At the emerging expert level,

however, pitches are prepared to a higher quality than lower competition levels and the

bowlers are equally of emerging expert level. The evidence presented here advances existing

knowledge by indicating that anticipation training not only benefits performance on in-situ

tests (eg., Hopwood et al., 2011; Müller et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2003), but also to the

competition setting. Furthermore, this is supported by evidence to indicate that laboratory-

based video-simulation methods are reflective of match performance (Gabbett, Jenkins, &

136

Abernethy, 2011; Müller & Fadde, 2016), confirming that transfer is possible from laboratory

video-based simulation tasks to competition settings.

Conclusion

Using point-light display temporal occlusion training, we showed improvement in the

anticipation skill of emerging expert cricket batsmen so they could read the kinematics of the

bowler from the beginning of the bowling delivery stride. This improvement is beneficial to

anticipation of bowlers participants had not previously experienced in the study, which is

vital as batters face different bowlers in competition. Equally valuable is that the

improvements to anticipation transferred into benefits to batting performance in competition.

Coaches and high performance staff should make consistent time during standard cricket

practice for batters to receive temporal occlusion training, which will provide greater

exposure to advance kinematic cues and assist batters to score more runs.

Practical Implications

Point-light display temporal occlusion training can improve anticipation in emerging

expert cricket batters.

Video-based anticipation training can be easily incorporated into standard cricket

practice because it only requires approximately 15 minutes per session.

Point-light display anticipation training can assist batters to potentially score more

runs.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend thanks to the participants who volunteered their time

and effort. Special thanks to the high performance coaches for their cooperation during data

collection period.

Conflict of Interest

The authors of this article declare no conflicts of interest in the development and

completion of this study.

137

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Supplementary Figures

Fig.1. Supplement. Still image example of point-light display of the fast bowler at the time of

ball release.

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Figure 2 - Supplement

Qualitative Analysis of Bowling Action Components Across the Bowling Action

Temporal Sequence of the Bowling Action

Component Back-foot

impact

Front-foot

impact

Ball release After ball release

Grip

Position of

Non-

bowling

arm

Wrist

position of

bowling

hand

Follow-

through of

bowling

hand

Ball

trajectory

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CHAPTER 6

Automated vision occlusion-timing instrument for perception-action research

Abstract

Vision occlusion spectacles are a highly valuable instrument for visual-perception-action

research in a variety of disciplines. In sports, occlusion spectacles have enabled invaluable

knowledge to be obtained about the superior capability of experts to use visual information to

guide actions within in-situ settings. Triggering the spectacles to occlude a performer’s vision

at a precise time in an opponent’s action or object flight has been problematic, due to

experimenter error in using a manual button press approach. This article describes a new laser

curtain wireless trigger of vision occlusion spectacles that is portable and fast in terms of its

transmission time. The laser curtain can be positioned in a variety of orientations to accept a

motion trigger such as a cricket bowler’s arm that distorts the lasers, which then sends a

wireless signal for the occlusion spectacles to change from transparent to opaque, which

occurs in only in 8 ms. Results are reported from calculations done in an electronics

laboratory, as well as tests in a performance laboratory with a cricket bowler and baseball

pitcher are reported, which verified this short time delay before vision occlusion. In addition,

our results show that occlusion consistently occurred when it was intended, that is, near ball

release and during mid-ball flight. Only 8% of the collected data trials were unusable. The

laser curtain improves upon the limitations of existing vision occlusion spectacle triggers,

indicating that it is a valuable instrument for perception-action research in a variety of

disciplines.

Keywords: Vision occlusion spectacles, automatic trigger, laser curtain, wireless.

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Automated vision occlusion-timing instrument for perception-action research

Milgram’s (1987) invention of spectacles that can occlude the availability of visual

information to an observer has been invaluable to researchers in different disciplines

interested in visual-perception-action research. Vision occlusion spectacles have been used to

understand the time course of visual information that guides motor skills such as reaching to

grasp an object (Whitwell, Lambert, & Goodale, 2008), interception of a fast moving object

(Marinovic, Plooy, & Tresilian, 2009), and maintenance of balance in movement disorders

(Morris et al., 2015). Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of studies have used

vision occlusion spectacles to investigate the time course of visual information that guides

complex, whole-body, high-speed sports skills such as return of serve in tennis and cricket

batting. Vision occlusion spectacles are popular with researchers because they allow

availability of visual information to be manipulated within in-situ settings and coupled to

complex actions such as movements of the whole body to strike a high-speed object such as a

tennis ball.

Starkes, Edwards, Dissanayake, and Dunn (1995) were the first to use vision

occlusion spectacles to investigate the time course of visual information pick-up for

anticipation in the high-speed sports skill of serving in volleyball. Skilled and novice

volleyball players stood on a court and wore the spectacles, which were connected by a cable

to a timer on the sideline. Participants observed opponents deliver different types of serves

that were occluded (spectacles opaque) at different time points in the server’s action, and they

had to make a non-motor prediction of the serve’s landing position by placing a marker on

the court. The experimenter manually triggered the spectacles to occlude the participant’s

vision of the server’s action by simultaneously watching the server’s action unfold and

pressing the button on the timer to correspond with pre-planned kinematic events. Occlusion

was targeted at events prior to, at and after the server’s ball-hand contact. The authors

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reported that the time delay for spectacles to occlude using a cable interface was 2 ms.

However, due to error in the timing of manual triggering (likely due to reaction time delays),

a high-speed camera was used to film the server’s action and record the created vision

occlusion conditions. The footage was post-hoc sorted to confirm which trials could be

retained for data analysis upon the basis of pre-planned temporal occlusion conditions. The

findings indicated that skilled university players could predict serve landing locations with

less error than novices. Their study spawned several others within in-situ settings that have

used a manually triggered and post-hoc trial sorted approach to demonstrate that experts have

superior anticipation skills than less skilled players in squash modified game scenarios

(Abernethy, Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001), tennis return of serve (Farrow & Abernethy, 2002,

2003; Farrow, Abernethy, & Jackson, 2005), cricket batting (Müller & Abernethy, 2006;

Müller et al., 2009; Müller, Brenton, Dempsey, Harbaugh, & Reid, 2015), and baseball

batting (Müller, Lalović, Dempsey, Rosalie, & Harbaugh, 2014).

Although manual triggering of vision occlusion spectacles and post-hoc sorting of

captured trials has allowed advancements to be made in terms of in-situ knowledge of expert

visual-perceptual-motor skill, there are also some limitations. First, the cable connection from

the vision occlusion spectacles to the manual trigger timer may restrict the broad range of

movements of performers in sports such as cricket or tennis that requires lower body

positioning and bat-ball interception. Accordingly, a cable can impede the perception-action

coupling of the motor skill that exists in the actual game setting. Recently, through use of an

automated force plate trigger and a cable connection to vision occlusion spectacles, it was

reported that a tethered system does not impede the natural striking pattern of cricket batsmen

(Mann, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2010; Mann, Abernethy, Farrow, Davis, & Spratford, 2010).

However, these studies used of a smaller range of cricket batting striking patterns. Burroughs

(1984) had previously developed a helmet where an opaque visor was triggered to occlude a

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baseball batters vision by the pitcher’s foot landing on a pressure-sensitive pad. However,

specific details such as whether the system was tethered and the time delay until occlusion

were not reported clearly. Second, high-speed sports skills such as the cricket bowler’s

delivery action and ball flight occurs under 1 s. Delays due to reaction time of the

experimenter in depression of the timer button to correspond with a simultaneously observed

bowler’s kinematic event, as well as transmission of the signal to switch the spectacles from

transparent to opaque, can be problematic in terms of precise occlusion timing relative to a

kinematic event. For example, manual triggering incurs a range of occlusion timing that is

approximately 200-300 ms (e.g., see Farrow & Abernethy, 2003; Müller et al., 2015). Again,

by means of an automated force plate trigger system, it has been reported that a cricket

batsman’s vision can be temporally occluded within a 50 ms range prior to or after ball

release of a cricket bowler’s action (Mann, et al., 2010). Third, the delay due to use of a

manual trigger of occlusion can cause loss of data because the timing of occlusion does not

correspond with the pre-planned kinematics event(s). For example, it may be necessary to

omit approximately 30% of the total completed trials per participant due to incorrect

triggering of occlusion timing in relation to the corresponding kinematic event (e.g., see

Müller et al., 2015). Loss of data has been reduced below this percentage using an automated

occlusion system (Mann, et al., 2010).

Although attempts have been made to automate occlusion timing and minimize the

limitations mentioned above associated with manual triggering, further advancements to

occlusion timing technology are necessary. As mentioned by Starkes et al. (1995), vision

occlusion technology needs to be transportable so that researchers can assess participants’

visual-perceptual-motor skill in a variety of in-situ settings, such as a performance laboratory,

actual game performance venue, or an indoor venue that can protect expensive equipment

from the weather. Vision occlusion spectacles also need to be wireless triggers in order to

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accommodate the broad range of sports skill movement patterns such as forward and

backward foot movements, or ball interception with vertical and horizontal bat swing in

dynamic and complex skills such as cricket batting. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to

consistently occlude vision at specific, pre-planned kinematic events.

This paper outlines an instrument that is capable of making these advancements in

terms of an automated wireless trigger of vision occlusion spectacles. The purpose of this

article is to: (a) outline a new automated wireless trigger of vision occlusion spectacles, (b)

present data on the time delay for automated wireless trigger of vision occlusion spectacles

from transparent to opaque, and (c) present data on automated wireless vision occlusion

timing in relation to two exemplar high-speed sport skills: cricket bowling and baseball

pitching.

Method

Participants

Two skilled male players participated in this study; one was a baseball pitcher and the

other was a cricket bowler. Both had played club level baseball and cricket, respectively. The

participants were recruited in order to obtain occlusion timing data for baseball pitching and

cricket bowling kinematic events, which are common motor skills used in the in-situ temporal

occlusion literature. Ethical approval was received from the relevant university committee

(permit number 2015/191) and participants gave written informed consent.

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Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the instrument set-up for one of the tests that was conducted

with a cricket bowler. Vertical laser tower pairs were placed on stands either side of a cricket

pitch to create a laser curtain near the point where the bowler releases the ball. The bowler

(B) ran for approximately 5 m and released the ball at the position of the laser curtain. The

control unit (CU) was connected to the laser curtain and light emitting diode (L) by cables

(indicated by solid lines). The CU communicated wirelessly with the driver controller (DC),

which was connected by cable to the vision occlusion spectacles. The high-speed camera

(solid black square) was controlled by a laptop computer (COMP) and captured the bowler’s

delivery action at the position of the light curtain and illumination of light emitting diode.

B

COMP

CU

Laser Curtain

DC

L

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Figure 2. Transmitter tower lasers mounted vertically on a stand.

Instruments

Figure 1 provides a diagrammatic representation of instrument set-up for automated

vision occlusion timing relative to kinematic events in baseball pitching and cricket bowling.

The new automated occlusion timing instrument consisted of: (i) a laser curtain wireless

device capable of triggering the vision occlusion spectacles in response to a kinematic event,

such as the pitcher’s or bowler’s arm distorting part of the laser curtain, (ii) a control unit that

operates the whole system, and (iii) a driver controller that is connected to the vision

occlusion spectacles driver.

The laser curtain consists of a transmitter and a receiver tower pair that is made of an

alloy frame to protect the lasers housed inside. The transmitter tower consists of 32, .5 mW

lasers, with the tower tethered by a direct current (DC) cable to a control unit. The receiver

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tower consists of 32 phototransistors that detect the light from each of the corresponding

transmitter tower lasers. The receiver tower is also tethered to the control unit through a

standard network cable (RJ45 connector). The towers can be set-up in any orientation, but for

the test in this article, they were mounted vertically on stands approximately 3 m apart so that

the bowler/pitcher could perform their movements in-between the towers, distort the laser

curtain, and trigger the spectacles to occlude near ball release or during ball flight (see Figure

2).

Figure 3. The unit that controls the laser curtain, light emitting diode and wireless driver

controller (connected to PLATO spectacles driver).

The control unit is used to power both towers, for instantaneous communication

between the towers, and to specify the timing of occlusion relative to a kinematic event (see

Figure 3). In turn, the control unit is powered by a 12 V supply (minimum of 4 A) and can

operate five tower pairs if needed. The top panel of the control unit includes switches that can

be positioned at stage one or two to selectively operate specific tower pairs. The center dials

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are used to select the mode of operation, such as to align lasers and use of specific tower pairs

(or stages) to create occlusion or no occlusion (in the latter case, the lasers turn on but do not

trigger vision occlusion). The lower dials are used to select time delays from the instant a

kinematic event, such as the bowling arm distorts part of the laser curtain. For example, the

delay can be set to 0 ms if the intention is to create temporal occlusion near the point of a

kinematic event such as ball release. Alternatively, if the intention is to create temporal

occlusion after a kinematic event such as ball release, then a delay (e.g., 200ms) can be set on

the dial. The ‘arm’ button is used to prepare the tower pairs to accept a kinematic event, such

as the cricket bowler’s arm that distorts part of the laser curtain, to trigger the occlusion

spectacles. The light emitting diode (LED) on the left hand side of the control unit flashes

when tower pairs are armed, is on when the spectacles are transparent and is off when the

spectacles are opaque. Thirty-two dual-colored LEDs on the right-hand side of the control

unit are illuminated during set-up to confirm laser alignment. A separate cable is connected at

one end to the control unit, and at the other end its LED is positioned in the high-speed

camera field of view to signal the time when the occlusion spectacles become opaque.

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Figure 4. The driver that is attached to, and controls the vision occlusion spectacles through

wireless communication with the control unit.

The driver controller is connected to the vision occlusion spectacles driver through a

short RJ11 lead (see Figure 4). The controller communicates wirelessly with the control unit

via a 434 MHz, modulated by an 800-µs square wave when it is idle, and changing to 300-µs

modulation to signal occlusion. The driver controller is powered by six AAA batteries housed

in a case and connected by a short cable to the driver controller. The driver controller,

spectacle driver and battery power supply are housed within a portable bag that is usually

strapped to the participant (e.g., batter), with the vision occlusion spectacles connected to the

driver, as done in previous in-situ temporal occlusion studies (e.g., see Müller et al., 2015).

A high-speed camera that sampled up to 1000 frames per second was used to capture

kinematic events such as ball release and ball flight, LED illumination, and in the foreground

the occlusion spectacles. This allowed vision occlusion time to be quantified using a frame-

by-frame analysis at 250 and 1000 frames per second.

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Procedure

First, in an electronics laboratory, the experimenters calculated the time from when

the laser curtain is distorted to the moment the vision occlusion spectacles become opaque.

Second, in a performance laboratory, one of the experimenters distorted the light curtain with

a hand for 18 trials, while the high-speed camera sampling at 1000 frames per second filmed

through the lens of the vision occlusion spectacles, in order to determine the time at which

the LED was illuminated and spectacles changed from transparent to opaque. Third, a

baseball pitcher threw 60 pitches that consisted of two pitch types (fastball and curveball),

while the pitcher’s throwing arm distorted the laser curtain near ball release. Temporal

occlusion was targeted near-ball release for 30 trials using a 0-ms delay, and in the remaining

30 trials occlusion was targeted in ball flight using a 200-ms delay. Fourth, a cricket bowler,

using a short run-up, bowled 28 balls that consisted of two ball types (balls that landed farther

away from and closer to the bowler), where, again, the bowler’s hand distorted the laser

curtain near ball release. For 15 of the balls temporal occlusion was targeted near-ball release

using a 0-ms delay, and for the remaining 13 balls, occlusion was targeted during ball flight

using a 200-ms delay. Both pitcher and bowler were filmed by a high-speed camera sampling

at 250 frames per second.

Results

The time delay from when the laser curtain was distorted till the vision occlusion

spectacles changed to opaque was 8 ms, as calculated in the electronics laboratory. Figure 5

provides a diagram of the instruments and their component time delays, as calculated in the

electronics laboratory. The diagram indicates that, within the total delay time for the vision

occlusion spectacles to be switched from transparent to opaque, the majority of the time delay

was due to the driver controller, driver and the vision occlusion spectacles. All 18 trials

captured in the performance laboratory consistently resulted in a time delay from when the

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laser curtain was distorted until the vision occlusion spectacles became opaque of 8 ms (at a

filmed rate of 1,000 frames per second). In relation to the baseball pitcher, in the 30 trials

during which temporal occlusion was targeted near-ball release, occlusion occurred 12 ms

after ball release (at the 250-frame-per-second filmed rate). In the remaining 30 trials, during

which temporal occlusion was targeted 200 ms after ball release, occlusion occurred 212 ms

after ball release (again at the filmed rate of 250 frames per second). Only one trial in the ball

flight temporal-occlusion condition did the glasses not occlude at 212 ms. In relation to the

cricket bowler, for the 15 trials during which temporal occlusion was targeted near ball

release, in ten of the trials occlusion occurred 12 ms after ball release (at the filmed rate of

250 frames per second), with occlusion occurring in the other four trials much earlier than

ball release. In the remaining 13 trials, during which temporal occlusion was targeted during

ball flight, in 12 of the trials occlusion occurred at 212 ms after ball release (at the filmed rate

of 250 frames per second) with occlusion on the other trial occurring much later.

Discussion

In this article, it was initially outlined how vision occlusion spectacle technology has

been used in several disciplines to investigate the time course of visual information that

guides action. Thereafter, the article described a new automated laser light curtain technology

that could wirelessly trigger vision occlusion spectacles to switch from transparent to opaque

in a very short time. Quantitative evidence of the time delay for the spectacles to occlude

(become opaque) was provided on the basis of calculations conducted in an electronics

laboratory and by filming the spectacles change state at a very high frame rate. In addition,

the time delay till occlusion was tested using two striking sport skills - baseball pitching and

cricket bowling - that are commonly used within in-situ occlusion studies. Collectively,

significant advancements have been made in automating and wirelessly triggering vision

occlusion spectacles, which will benefit future research.

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The new automated wireless laser curtain trigger for vision occlusion spectacles

includes only one main physical piece of equipment in addition to what is commonly used in

existing manual trigger systems. Even with recent advancements in the automated occlusion

of spectacles, a force plate that is not portable is still required; although a pressure pad system

has been suggested as an alternative (Mann, et al., 2010), the function of the pressure pad

system is yet to be properly demonstrated with motor skills such as those used in cricket and

baseball. In their seminal article, Starkes et al. (1995) identified the importance of portable

vision occlusion spectacle technology, and in line with this vision, they used very little

equipment to create and verify the temporal occlusion conditions. The laser light curtain

reported in this paper could certainly be used on a volleyball court to measure anticipation of

the serve, as in Starkes et al.’s study, but providing the participant freedom of movement, due

to the wireless trigger for the spectacles. The light curtain could also be used in other indoor

sports venues - such as for cricket batting, baseball batting, tennis return of serve, and soccer

goalkeeping, to name a few - that will protect the equipment from weather.

The results from this article demonstrate that when the new laser curtain is triggered

by a kinematic event it can through wireless communication consistently switch the state of

the occlusion spectacles from transparent to opaque in some 8 ms. Previous studies have

reported wireless trigger delays between 10-20 ms using instrument sampling rates of 200 Hz

(see, e.g., Farrow & Abernethy, 2003; van Soest et al., 2010). Using a much higher sampling

rate of 1,000 frames per second in this article, it was possible to clarify that the actual time

delay for the wireless vision occlusion spectacles to be switched to opaque is shorter than

previously thought. The 8-ms wireless delay reported in this article is more than reasonable

when considered in relation to the seminal in-situ occlusion study by Starkes et al. (1995) that

used a cable and reported a delay of 2 ms, as well as the seminal occlusion spectacles

instrument paper by Milgram (1987) that reported a delay of 4 ms.

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The automated laser curtain trigger reduced the range over which vision occlusion is

created based upon pre-planned kinematic events. In this article, the majority of the test trials

resulted in vision occlusion consistently occurring at 12 ms after ball release (using a 0-ms

set occlusion delay on the control unit) or 212 ms after ball release (using a 200-ms set

occlusion delay on the control unit). This is a much smaller range of timings for creating

occlusion than has previously existed in the literature for manual triggering, at around 200 ms

(e.g., see Müller et al., 2015), or automated triggering, at 50 ms (Mann, et al., 2010). It may

be argued that for the ball release kinematic event, temporal occlusion in this article was

created after ball release, which can be considered different to the pre-ball release temporal

occlusion conditions in several previous in-situ studies (e.g., Farrow & Abernethy, 2003;

Mann, et al., 2010; Müller & Abernethy, 2006; Starkes et al., 1995). However, the broader

range of temporal occlusion timings prior to a key kinematic event such as ball release or

racquet-ball contact in these previous studies needs to be taken into consideration.

Accordingly, previous studies would have not consistently allowed the observer (e.g., cricket

batter) to view the final position of the distal limb segment such as the ball and hand at the

point of ball release, which has been reported to be informative to expert anticipation

(Loffing & Hagemann, 2014; Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006). Therefore, to be able to

create temporal occlusion just after ball release appears important to fully understand the

capability of performers to use complete key kinematic anticipatory visual cues.

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Figure 5. Cumulative instrument time delays for laser curtain, control unit, light emitting diode,

driver controller and vision occlusion spectacles.

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The automated laser curtain was highly successful in preventing the significant loss of

test trial data that commonly occurs when using manual triggering. In this article, of the total

88 test trials that were completed between the pitcher and bowler, on only 7 of these trials

vision occlusion was not created as intended, which is an 8% exclusion rate of total

completed test trials. This is considerably better than a manual wireless trigger method that

can incur a loss of approximately 30% of the total test trials. The significantly increased

retention of the number of test trials that are completed will contribute to keep trial repeats

included in the test trial matrix during the planning phase of occlusion studies (to safe guard

against data loss) to a minimum. Increased retention of trials can also minimize the time

required for participants to complete in-situ studies, particularly since professional athletes

are time limited and often have workload restrictions relating to balls bowled or pitches

thrown.

Summary

Details of a new automated wireless trigger for vision occlusion spectacles that

includes a laser curtain, driver controller and control unit. These instruments were checked in

a series of tests with vision occlusion spectacles and a high-speed camera in both electronics

and performance laboratories. Consistently very small time delays were found with electronic

measures and confirmed using complex whole-body sports skills. Temporal occlusion was

also consistently created where it was intended, relative to kinematics events of the sports

skills. The laser curtain presents promising opportunities for use in visual-perception-action

research in sport and other disciplines.

159

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CHAPTER 7

Conclusions, Implications, Limitation and Future Research

The purposes of this thesis were to: (i) extend theoretical understanding of whether

visual or motor experience is more beneficial to improve visual anticipation skill in club

cricket batsmen, (ii) use the most beneficial training method to improve visual anticipation

skill in emerging expert cricket batsmen, and (iii) determine the benefits of the interventions

to learning and transfer of visual anticipation skill. To achieve these purposes a systematic

approach was taken that included; validation of a sports-specific video simulation temporal

occlusion test (Experiment 1 - Chapter 3), manipulation of visual and motor experience

(Experiment 2 - Chapter 4), and application of findings from Experiment 2 to an emerging

expert group of athletes (Experiment 3 - Chapter 5). A new instrument was also developed

that will benefit future research to create an in-situ temporal occlusion test (Chapter 6).

Collectively, this thesis contributed to theoretical and applied knowledge within the field of

sport expertise and motor skill learning.

The findings of this thesis have provided the following conclusions that include: (a)

video temporal occlusion methodology in combination with a sports-specific motor response

can discriminate fine-grained differences in visual anticipation between skilled cricket

batsmen towards the expert end of the skill continuum (Experiment 1 - Chapter 3), (b)

addition of motor pattern training (motor experience) to visual-perceptual training (visual

experience) imparts greater improvement to visual anticipation skill than visual-perceptual

training alone in club level cricket batsmen, which advances theoretical understanding of the

mechanism that underpins improvement of visual anticipation (i.e., related to common-

coding theory) (Experiment 2 - Chapter 4), (c) visual-perceptual training with additive motor

pattern training improves visual anticipation in emerging expert cricket batsmen, together

with transfer of improvement to different bowlers and performance in match situations

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(Experiment 3 - Chapter 5), and (d) a new instrument that can improve precision and

reliability of creating visual temporal occlusion within in-situ testing settings for future

research (Chapter 6).

The findings and conclusions from this thesis have theoretical and applied

implications related to the field of sport expertise and skill learning as follows.

Expertise Implications: ‘Having all the time in the world’

As mentioned in the introduction to this thesis, expert performers in striking sports

give the impression of ‘having all the time in the world’ to plan and execute their motor skills

(Abernethy, Farrow, & Mann, 2018; Williams, Ford, Hodges, & Ward, 2018). The series of

studies conducted in this thesis confirmed previous research that batsmen who are not well

established international or state level performers do not use advance cues in order to

anticipate (Experiments 1-3 – Chapters 3-5). Accordingly, lesser skilled performers including

youth, club and emerging expert batsmen (Experiments 1-3 – Chapter 3-5) rely more upon

ball flight information, which in the competition setting can result in their batting stroke

being ‘rushed’. Crucially, the point-light display temporal occlusion training coupled with

motor practice of the observed bowler’s movement pattern delivered to club and emerging

expert batsmen (Experiment 2 and 3 – Chapter 4 and 5), shifted these players reliance upon

ball flight information to the use of very early advance kinematic cues from the beginning of

the bowler’s delivery stride. Given the high time constraints faced by batsmen, this pick-up of

advance information will allow these batsmen more time to anticipate and execute their

stroke in competition settings. Therefore, the interventions applied in the studies of this thesis

progressed lesser skilled batsmen to anticipate more like well-established expert batsmen (see

Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006; Müller, Abernethy, Eid, McBean, & Rose, 2010).

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Theoretical Implications

Previous research investigating the predictions of common-coding theory has

manipulated visual and motor experience to understand their contributions to visual

anticipation, focussing predominantly on open or closed skills where the stimuli viewed is

‘matched’ to the motor pattern possessed by the performer (or observer) (see Chapter 2). In

addition, several previous studies in the literature that have investigated visual and motor

experience contributions to anticipation have not used a task that requires a complementary

action response (see Chapter 2). For example, recently, visual and motor experience training

has been investigated using a task of throwing a dart that requires anticipation of the same

throwing action (Mulligan & Hodges, 2014). An observed behaviour approach was taken to

evaluate the value of visual and motor training interventions to improvement of dart location

anticipation and motor-interference tasks to probe the motor system’s contribution to

anticipation (Hodges, 2017; Mulligan & Hodges, 2014; Mulligan, Lohse, & Hodges, 2016).

Hodges (2017), however, stated that research is necessary to investigate the predictions of

common-coding theory, by manipulating visual and motor experience, using tasks

necessitating a complementary action response such as open ‘mismatched’ motor skills of

cricket and baseball batting. Furthermore, Hodges (2017) stated that measures, manipulations

and interference tasks based upon an observed behaviour approach are useful to progress

knowledge of visual and motor experience contributions to anticipation using these types of

motor skills.

The theoretical study in this thesis (see Chapter 4) used the open ‘mismatched’ skill of

cricket batting as the exemplar. Employing an observed behaviour approach to manipulate

visual and motor experience, an interference task and measure anticipation accuracy

(outcome), important theoretical advancements were made. First, evidence was provided that

the mechanism for learning (i.e., pre- to post-test improvement of anticipation) was

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underpinned by visual and motor experience. Second, evidence was provided that the

mechanism for transfer of learning benefits (i.e., to transfer tests) was underpinned to a

greater extent by additive motor experience (or practice) of the observed opponent’s

movement pattern. Third, and most important, maximal benefits to improved anticipation

(i.e., across pre-post-transfer tests) resulted from the mechanism underpinned by learning the

observed bowler motor pattern. The intervention designed to learn the observed bowler’s

movement pattern altered the pre-existing ‘mismatched’ skill to one that was ‘matched’ after

the intervention. This ensured a tight linkage between the observed pattern and embodied

pattern within the performer that facilitated superior learning and transfer of anticipation

skill. This ‘matching’ of performer and opponent movement patterns is consistent with other

studies that have reported that possession of the motor pattern one perceives facilitates

superior anticipation (e.g., Abernethy & Zawi, 2007; Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi,

2008).

The theoretical findings from this thesis confirm the predictions of common-coding

theory that visual and motor information can bi-directionally influence visual-perceptual-

motor skill that includes visual anticipation (see Chapter 4). However, the theoretical findings

of this thesis extend understanding of the predictions of common-coding theory to indicate

that motor experience imparts a much stronger influence upon visual-perception

(anticipation), than does visual experience alone (see Chapter 4). It is likely that this

prominent motor system contribution to anticipation is by means of simulation or ‘emulation’

of the observed action prior to it unfolding (Mulligan et al., 2016; Wilson & Knoblich, 2005).

Some further support for this conclusion was provided through the novel interference task

used in this thesis that not only impaired learning, but maintained anticipation at chance level

(see Chapter 4). Therefore, whilst visual and motor information can be conceptualised as

166

existing in a common-code (Prinz, 1997), motor information appears to take prominence in

the interpretation of visual information.

Motor information can influence visual anticipation through what has been referred to

as an ‘internal model’ of the immediate environment (Colling, Thompson, & Sutton, 2014;

Diaz, Cooper, Rothkopf, & Hayhoe, 2013; Hayhoe, Mennie, Sullivan, & Gorgos, 2002). It is

possible that those participants who received motor pattern practice of the observed bowler’s

movement pattern, not only learnt what they observed, but also developed an ‘internal model’

of what they observed. As they continued to acquire this ‘internal model’, whilst responding

to visual cues presented during point-light occlusion training, the developing ‘internal model’

could have enhanced their capability to anticipate, as has been previously reported to occur

through experience in a novel virtual racquet-ball interception task (Diaz et al., 2013). This

implies the importance of memory and experience based processes that underlies expertise

and skill learning.

The benefits of visual and motor experience to learning and transfer of visual

anticipation was facilitated through point-light display temporal occlusion training. This is

important because previous expertise research had reported that only experts are capable of

using the pure kinematic information available in point-light displays (e.g., Abernethy, Gill,

Parks, & Packer, 2001; Huys et al., 2009). This thesis indicated that sufficient kinematic

information was available in the point-light display of a bowler, over an extended period of

time, for club and emerging expert batsmen to extract advance cues to improve anticipation

on video temporal occlusion tests. It may well be that presentation of only pure kinematic

information strengthened these players selective attention to the base visual information

known to be associated with visual anticipation, which also then contributed to learning and

transfer benefits. This is also an important contribution to the expertise and skill learning

167

literature, indicating that future intervention studies should utilise point-light displays more

frequently.

Applied Implications

Visual anticipation has been extensively investigated through performance studies

involving comparison across extreme ends of the skill continuum (i.e., expert vs. novice)

(Loffing & Cañal-Bruland, 2017; Müller & Abernethy, 2012). In contrast, much of the

existing learning studies have focused upon the novice to intermediate end of the skill

continuum (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). Furthermore, very little emphasis has been

placed upon transfer of learning to contexts within the test-retest laboratory setting or to field-

based settings (Morris-Binelli & Müller, 2017). This thesis contributed to each of these

applied components in the field of sport expertise and skill learning.

First, the research in this thesis demonstrated that the use of a video temporal

occlusion method, combined with a sport-specific motor response, could identify fine-grained

differences in visual anticipation between expert, emerging expert and club batsmen

(Experiment 1 – Chapter 3). This contributes to the expertise literature to indicate that both

written (Moore & Müller, 2014; Müller, Fadde, & Harbaugh, 2016), and sport-specific motor

(Brenton, Müller, & Mansingh, 2016) response modes used in the video temporal occlusion

paradigm can detect fine-grained differences in visual anticipation. This is useful information

for the skill acquisition practitioner and scientist, who could use either of these response

modes to assess anticipation skill in athletes. Further support for the use of these response

modes is derived from evidence that large differences in visual anticipation can be detected

when comparing experts versus novices with complete perception-action coupled (Mann,

Abernethy, & Farrow, 2010) or written (Müller, Abernethy, & Farrow, 2006, Experiment 1)

responses in-situ and to a video simulation, respectively. This is particularly valuable

information because it is difficult to recruit opponents to conduct in-situ temporal occlusion

168

tests (see Müller, Brenton, & Rosalie, 2015.) The sports-specific response to video stimuli

may, however, engage and motivate the athlete to be involved in the task because it more

closely represents actual batting.

Second, it was demonstrated in this thesis that the anticipation skill of skilled players

could be improved (see Chapter 4 & 5). This again contributes to the skill learning literature

by demonstrating that visual anticipation can be improved beyond the intermediate athlete

(e.g., Smeeton, Hibbert, Stevenson, Cumming, & Williams, 2013), to those that are skilled

batsmen, as well as those who are emerging expert batsmen selected in the high performance

unit of a state sport organisation. This is highly useful information for the skill acquisition

practitioner and coach, who should be encouraged to implement point-light temporal

occlusion training into standard cricket practice. This is particularly necessary because there

are restrictions on the number of balls bowlers can deliver in standard cricket practice in-

between competition (Schaefer, O’Dwyer, Ferdinands, & Edwards, 2018). This type of

restriction is also imposed upon other athletes such as the field-hockey drag flicker and

baseball pitcher. Therefore, video or point-light display temporal occlusion training of

opponents (e.g., bowlers) can be easily developed to deliver visual-perceptual training

coupled with acquisition of the observed movement pattern to the performer (e.g., batsman),

as done in this thesis.

Third, it was demonstrated in this thesis that transfer of improved anticipation could

occur to different bowlers and to the competition setting (see Chapter 4 & 5). This is vital

evidence because batsmen do not face the same bowler in competition, but rather different

fast and slow (spin) bowlers. Accordingly, the benefits of additive motor pattern training

generalised to different opponents. More profound is that additive motor pattern training had

benefits to the average runs scored by the intervention group, but not the control group. This

provides further support to the point above that visual-perceptual training coupled with

169

acquisition of the opponent bowler’s action should be included in standard practice, because

the control groups who only participate in standard practice did not improve their anticipation

skill over the 4 to 6 week training periods. Again, this contributes to the skill learning

literature by demonstrating that training improvements extend beyond the laboratory or in-

situ tests (e.g., Hopwood et al., 2011; Williams, Ward, Smeeton, & Allen, 2004) to the

competition setting. Ultimately, the primary goal of any practitioner is to prepare the athlete

for better performance in competition.

Limitations and Future Research

A potential limitation of the research conducted throughout this thesis is the use of

temporal occlusion in both video and point-light display formats, which did not allow

participants to anticipate and attempt to strike a delivered ball. Accordingly, these tests may

not be considered as highly representative of the competition task, but video or point-light

display footage with temporal occlusion can still be considered an effective method for

applied experimental research as discussed above. That is, video and point-light displays have

been able to demonstrate fine-grained differences in anticipation at the expert end of the skill

continuum and the use of advance information in these test is consistent with in-situ

occlusion methods where overt action is engaged (Mann et al., 2010; Müller & Abernethy,

2012). The automated occlusion timer instrument developed in this thesis will make it easier

to include in-situ temporal occlusion tests in future by reducing loss of data that incurs less

repeated trials required from opponent bowlers. The challenge, however, will remain for

sports scientists to convince the same bowlers to deliver several balls (test trials) to all

participants across pre-post-transfer testing phases.

Future replication studies are required using other ‘mismatched’ sport skills such as

baseball batting and field hockey goal-keeping to confirm the findings of Experiment 2 and 3

(Chapters 4 and 5) in this thesis. This will help consolidate both theoretical and applied

170

conclusions from this thesis. Interesting lines of future research could also include training of

motor experience, that is, acquisition of the observed movement pattern alone to improved

learning and transfer of visual anticipation. In addition, visual and motor experience training

could be manipulated in near and far sports to the target sport to determine how exposure to

other sports develop anticipation skill.

Summary

Collectively, this thesis contributed to gaps in learning and transfer evidence in sport

expertise and skill learning literature. This thesis has furthered theoretical understanding of

the knowledge of visual and motor experience training to improving anticipation, advanced

practical knowledge by displaying that point-light anticipation training, with or without

combination of motor pattern training, can be easily incorporated in training sessions of club

and high performance units. Instrument improvement expanding upon present design to allow

use of temporal occlusion glasses to explore transfer of training methods from the laboratory

to the field have also been made. The findings of this thesis will be highly beneficial to

scientists, skill acquisition specialists and sports organisations alike, as evidence for further

potential research, as well as to directly implement evidence-based training capable of

accelerating development of club and emerging expert athletes.

171

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