The relationship between expertise and visual search strategy in a racquet sport

Abstract

The visual search characteristics of 15 expert and 16 novice badminton players were recorded as they performed a film test designed to assess their anticipatory cue usage. Experts were found, from the film task, to be able to pick up earlier advance information than novices and this appeared to be related to their reliance upon the arm, in addition to the racquet, as a source of anticipatory information. These differemces in information-extraction, however, were not matched by differences in visual search characteristics with the location, duration and sequence of the novices' fixations on the film display being indistinguishable from those of the experts. It is concluded therefore that the major source of expertise-related differences in sport perception is not the visual search (or reception) strategy per se but rather the use to which the received information is subsequently put. Some experimental and practical implications of the observed discrepancy between visual orientation and information-extraction are considered and the normal search strategy adopted in badminton by both expert and novice players is described in some detail.