Abstract
The present research attempted to extend prior research that showed that thin-slices of pre-performance nonverbal behavior (NVB) of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies. Specifically, we investigated what kind of nonverbal cues were associated with success and informed thin-slice ratings. Participants (N = 61) were first asked to estimate the performance of a random sample of videos showing the preparatory NVB of professional darts players (N = 47) either performing well (470 clips) or poorly (470 clips). Preparatory NVB was assessed via preparation times and Active Appearance Modeling using Noldus FaceReader. Results showed that observers could distinguish between good and poor performance based on thin-slices of preparatory NVB (p = 0.001, d = 0.87). Further analyses showed that facial expressions prior to poor performance showed more arousal (p = 0.011, ƞ2p = 0.10), sadness (p = 0.040, ƞ2p = 0.04), and anxiety (p = 0.009, ƞ2p = 0.09) and preparation times were shorter (p = 0.001, ƞ2p = 0.36) prior to poor performance than good performance. Lens model analyses showed preparation times (p = 0.001, rho = 0.18), neutral (p = 0.001, rho = 0.13), sad (rho = 0.12), and facial expressions of arousal (p = 0.001, rho = 0.11) to be correlated with observers’ performance ratings. Hence, preparation times and facial cues associated with a player’s level of arousal, neutrality, and sadness seem to be valid nonverbal cues that observers utilize to infer information about subsequent perceptual-motor performance.
Highlights
The present research attempted to extend prior research that showed that thin-slices of preperformance nonverbal behavior (NVB) of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies
The present research attempted to extend prior research showing that thin-slices of pre-performance NVB of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies by investigating what kind of nonverbal cues were associated with success and informed thin-slice ratings
To address the question of which nonverbal cues differed as a function of performance, we first ran a series Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests on the averaged FaceReader variables and preparation times in the high and low performance categories
Summary
The present research attempted to extend prior research that showed that thin-slices of preperformance nonverbal behavior (NVB) of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies. The present research attempted to extend prior research showing that thin-slices of pre-performance NVB of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies by investigating what kind of nonverbal cues were associated with success and informed thin-slice ratings. To address this question, participants were first asked to estimate the performance of a random sample of videos showing the preparatory NVB of darts players either performing well or poorly. The informational value of any cue or set of cues is probabilistic at best and depends on various other encoded cues, characteristics of the sender and the perceiver, and contextual variables like the nature of the situation (e.g., friendly or hostile)[1]
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