Spatiotemporal characteristics of an attacker\u2019s strategy to pass a defender effectively in a computer-based one-on-one task

Kazushi Tsutsui,Kazutoshi Kudo,Masahiro Shinya

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-54012-5

Abstract

For modern humans, chase-and-escape behaviors are fundamental skills in many sports. A critical factor related to the success or failure of chase-and-escape is the visuomotor delay. Recent studies on sensorimotor decision making have shown that humans can incorporate their own visuomotor delay into their decisions. However, the relationship between the decision of an attacker and the visuomotor delay of a defender is still unknown. Here, we conducted a one-on-one chase-and-escape task for humans and investigated the characteristics of the direction changes of the attacker and the responses of the defender. Our results showed that the direction change of the attacker has two characteristics: uniformity of spatial distribution and bimodality of temporal distribution. In addition, we showed that the response of the defender did not depend on the position but it was delayed to the direction change of the attacker with a short interval. These results suggest that the characteristics of direction change of an attacker increased unpredictability, and it could be useful for preventing the predictive response of the defender and to receive the benefit of an extra response delay of tens of milliseconds, respectively.

Highlights

For modern humans, chase-and-escape behaviors are fundamental skills in many sports
We explore how agents make their decisions in complex interactions such as those seen in a variety of sports situations
We focused on the probability distribution regarding direction changes in chase-and-escape interactions and elucidated the corresponding spatiotemporal characteristics

Summary

Introduction

Chase-and-escape behaviors are fundamental skills in many sports. A critical factor related to the success or failure of chase-and-escape is the visuomotor delay. Chase-and-escape interactions are ubiquitous in nature (predator– prey), and feature in many sports such as football, rugby, and basketball (defender–attacker)[1,2,3] In these interactions, the decisions of the agents on when and where to move are essential for survival and success[4,5]. In a handball penalty shot, when there is a probability bias in the shot direction of the opponent, the goalkeeper is more likely to respond in that direction than to respond as if the shot of the opponent is likely to occur in either direction[19] These studies suggested that the pursuer should use the situational (event) probability information to anticipate the movement of the opponent in interceptive behaviors. Given that the response of defender to the direction change of the attacker is delayed in such a situation, the attacker could iterate effective direction changes

Methods

Results

Conclusion