The effects of sport expertise and shot results on basketball players' action anticipation.

Yawei Li,Tian Feng,William Marshall Land

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0227521

Abstract

The purpose of the present cross-sectional study was to clarify the effects of sport expertise and shot results on the action anticipation of basketball players. Eighty-eight male subjects participated in this study, namely, 30 collegiate basketball players, 28 recreational basketball players and 30 non-athletes. Each participant performed a shot anticipation task in which he watched the shooting phase, rising phase, high point and falling phase of a free throw and predicted the fate of the ball. The results showed that the collegiate players and recreational players demonstrated higher accuracy than the non-athletes for the falling phase but not for the other temporal conditions. Analysis of the shot results demonstrated that for made shots, the collegiate players and recreational players provided more accurate predictions than the non-athletes. These results suggested that the experienced players required a sufficient amount of information to be able to make accurate judgements and demonstrated that the experts’ judgement bias for made shots was independent of the temporal condition.

Highlights

Action anticipation refers to the ability to predict the outcome of an event [1]
The performance of basketball players with varying skill levels and non-athletes was compared in an action anticipation task
Concerning the temporal conditions and shot results, the results demonstrated that the collegiate players and recreational players exhibited better accuracy than the non-athletes for the falling phase but not for the other temporal conditions

Summary

Introduction

Action anticipation refers to the ability to predict the outcome of an event [1]. In contrast to racquet sports (such as tennis or badminton) in which a server usually decides the ball direction before starting his or her action, a basketball shooter can never be certain of the shot result until the final second. Illustrating the development of shot anticipation ability in basketball is critical. Anticipating the outcome of an action, such as predicting whether a basketball will hit or miss the basket, directly affects the performance of an athlete. Accurate judgement helps a player plan his or her subsequent action (such as obtaining a rebound or playing defence) . The main goal of this study was to investigate the influence of sport expertise and shot results on the action anticipation of basketball players

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion