Baseball Experts Research Articles

Baseball Fans’ Evaluations of Robot Umpire: The Perspective of Human-Robot Interaction

PURPOSE The current study examined how baseball fans evaluate a robot umpire from the perspective of the human-robot interaction. In particular, this study examined whether baseball fans evaluated more positively a robot umpire depending on whether a robot or a human umpire has the final authority to make ball-strike decisions, when the ball-strike decision contradicts with each other. Furthermore, the different types of expertise (baseball vs. image analysis) embedded in robot umpire and fans’ levels of technology adoption were used to examine the relationship between umpire type and evaluations of robot umpire. METHODS This study used 2 (final decision maker: robot vs. human umpire) by 2 (different types of expertise embedded in robot umpire: baseball vs. image analysis) by 2 (different levels of technology adoption: low vs. high) between-subjects design.RESULTS The results indicated that when a robot umpire had the final authority to make ball-strike decisions, baseball fans evaluated more positively the adoption of robot umpire, when image analysis expertise was embedded in the robot umpire rather than baseball expertise. Meanwhile, baseball fans evaluated more positively the adoption of robot umpire when baseball expertise was embedded in a robot umpire rather than image analysis expertise. CONCLUSIONS The current study provides meaningful implications regarding how to design an effective system for the operation of robot umpire in baseball.

An Efficient System for Supporting Bat Swing of Beginners in Baseball Using Wearable Sensors

Recently a support system that improves sports skills using sensor or video camera data is attracting great attention. Since most of these systems are developed for professional athletes, few are available for beginners. In baseball, since hitting skills are generally acquired based on oral pantomimed by baseball experts, it is difficult for beginners to understand the advice based on the skill level of baseball experts. In this paper, we propose a support system through which beginners improve their hitting skills by analyzing the batting stance of baseball players using such wearable sensors as acceleration and angular velocity sensors. In our proposed system, beginners swing based on wearable sensors that compose a triaxial acceleration sensor and an angular velocity sensor to the bat and the body. Next, experts in baseball can analyze the modification of the batting stance of beginners by measuring the sensor values of the swing. In the evaluation result, our proposed system analyzed the differences of batting stance between experts and beginners in baseball and confirmed that we can effectively support the hitting skill of baseball beginners.

Baseball Timeline: Summarizing Baseball Plays Into a Static Visualization

AbstractIn sports, Play Diagrams are the standard way to represent and convey information. They are widely used by coaches, managers, journalists and fans in general. There are situations where diagrams may be hard to understand, for example, when several actions are packed in a certain region of the field or there are just too many actions to be transformed in a clear depiction of the play. The representation of how actions develop through time, in particular, may be hardly achieved on such diagrams. The time, and the relationship among the actions of the players through time, is critical on the depiction of complex plays. In this context, we present a study on how player actions may be clearly depicted on 2D diagrams. The study is focused on Baseball plays, a sport where diagrams are heavily used to summarize the actions of the players. We propose a new and simple approach to represent spatiotemporal information in the form of a timeline. We designed our visualization with a requirement driven approach, conducting interviews and fulfilling the needs of baseball experts and expert‐fans. We validate our approach by presenting a detailed analysis of baseball plays and conducting interviews with four domain experts.

Effects of baseball expertise and stimulus speeds on coincidence-anticipation timing accuracy of batting

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of baseball expertise and stimulus speeds on coincidence-anticipation timing accuracy of batting. [Methods] Participants were 21 baseball batters, 7 of Korea Baseball Organization(KBO) League, 7 of Korea Baseball Organization Futures League, and 7 of Korea University Baseball Federation(KUBF) League. All of the participants were asked to swing the bat exactly at the time when the light arrived the target point of the runway. The Bassin Anticipation Timer was used to present stimulus with stimulus speed of 10, 15, and 20mph. Participants performed 10, 15, 20mph trials (3 kinds of speed per 5 times) and random trials (3 kinds of speed per 3 times randomly). The timing error of coincidence anticipation task was recorded and raw scores were transformed to constant error(CE), absolute error(AE) and variable error(VE). For data analysis, two-way ANOVA with repeated measures were used. And post-hoc test (Tukey HDS) were conducted. [Results] Results indicated a significant interaction on expertise and stimulus speeds for CE, AE and VE. The KBO League players group showed more accurate and consistent performance than the KBO Futures League players group and the KUBF League players group in baseball batting timing. [Conclusion] This findings revealed that coincidence-anticipation timing accuracy batting in baseball can be used as a factor to distinguish the ability of the other.

Baseball fans don't like lumpy batters: Influence of domain knowledge on the access of subordinate meanings.

Two experiments investigated the effects of domain knowledge on the resolution of ambiguous words with dominant meanings related to baseball. When placed in a sentence context that strongly biased toward the non-baseball meaning (positive evidence), or excluded the baseball meaning (negative evidence), baseball experts had more difficulty than non-experts resolving the ambiguity. Sentence contexts containing positive evidence supported earlier resolution than did the negative evidence condition for both experts and non-experts. These experiments extend prior findings, and can be seen as support for the reordered access model of lexical access, where both prior knowledge and discourse context influence the availability of word meanings.

The Effects of Expertise on the Hindsight Bias

AbstractWe present data from three experiments examining the effects of objective and subjective expertise on the hindsight bias. In Experiment 1, participants read an essay about baseball or dogs and then answered questions about the baseball essay to the best of their ability, as if they had not read the essay, or to the best of their ability, although they read about dogs. Participants also completed a quiz about baseball rules and terminology, which was an objective measure of expertise. Results demonstrated that as participants' baseball expertise increased, their inability to act as if they never read the essay also increased; expertise exacerbated the hindsight bias. To test the effects of subjective expertise on hindsight bias and investigate factors underlying the relationship, participants in Experiment 2 ranked five topics in order of expertise and gave feeling‐of‐knowing (FOK) ratings for questions from these topics. Foresight participants then saw each question again and answered the questions; hindsight participants saw the questions and answers and gave the probability they would have known the answers had they not been provided. Hindsight bias increased with subjective expertise as did average FOK ratings. In Experiment 3, we experimentally manipulated perceived expertise but found that neither average FOK ratings nor hindsight bias was affected by experimentally induced expertise. Taken together, the results demonstrate that expertise exacerbates both objective and subjective hindsight bias but that an FOK, which likely exists only when expertise is naturally acquired, is necessary to engender the detrimental effect of expertise on the hindsight bias. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Are Current Approaches to Improving LTC Quality Hits or Errors?

Are Current Approaches to Improving LTC Quality Hits or Errors?

Experts in fast-ball sports reduce anticipation timing cost by developing inhibitory control

The present study was conducted to examine the relationship between expertise in movement correction and rate of movement reprogramming within limited time periods, and to clarify the specific cognitive processes regarding superior reprogramming ability in experts. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in baseball experts (n=7) and novices (n=7) while they completed a predictive task. The task was to manually press a button to coincide with the arrival of a moving target. The target moved at a constant velocity, and its velocity was suddenly decreased in some trials. Under changed velocity conditions, the baseball experts showed significantly smaller timing errors and a higher rate of timing reprogramming than the novices. Moreover, ERPs in baseball experts revealed faster central negative deflection and augmented frontal positive deflection at 200ms (N200) and 300ms (Pd300) after target deceleration, respectively. Following this, peak latency of the next positive component in the central region (P300b) was delayed. The negative deflection at 200ms, augmented frontal positive deflection, and late positive deflection at 300ms have been interpreted as reflecting stimulus detection, motor inhibition, and stimulus–response translation processes. Taken together, these findings suggest that the experts have developed movement reprogramming to avoid anticipation cost, and this is characterized by quick detection of target velocity change, stronger inhibition of the planned, incorrect response, and update of the stimulus–response relationship in the changed environment.

A Major League Baseball Team Uses Operations Research to Improve Draft Preparation

Preparing for the annual major league baseball draft is a difficult task; with 1,500 players selected each year, teams must evaluate and rank many hundreds of potential draftees. To evaluate the players, these teams send out scouts, baseball experts who make qualitative and quantitative observations and report their opinions to the team. However, scouts often disagree significantly in their opinions. We worked with a major league team to model and solve the problem of suggesting a consensus ranking of all players scouted by the team's representatives. Our methodology can also make in-season recommendations for dynamic scout scheduling based on the level of information each scout is likely to provide on each player, and the uncertainty in the “correct” overall ranking of each player. The team has been using the optimization tool we provided for the past two years, and a second major league team has also asked us to evaluate its ranking data.

Playing level achieved, throwing history, and humeral torsion in Masters baseball players

Humeral torsion is thought to be beneficial for throwing. To examine this hypothesis, the throwing and non-throwing arms of 84 Masters baseball players over 35 years of age were measured for humeral torsion, and the highest playing level they achieved and their playing history were recorded. Regression analyses were used to obtain predictors of the highest playing level achieved, throwing arm humeral torsion, and side-to-side difference in humeral torsion. Equations accounting for 36%, 46%, and 12% of the variance respectively were produced. Achieving representative level playing status was associated with the number of seasons played under 16 years of age and having greater throwing arm humeral retrotorsion. Throwing arm humeral retrotorsion was associated with non-throwing arm humeral retrotorsion and an increased number of seasons played before the age of 16 years. A model in which repeated throwing develops an adaptive unilateral bone torsion along with growth in baseball expertise is proposed. Thus dominant arm humeral retrotorsion is a predictor of highest baseball playing level achieved, which in turn is influenced by genetic endowment (as seen in the torsion of the non-throwing arm) and amount of throwing activity, particularly prior to the age of 16.

速度変化状況での一致タイミング課題における野球の熟達と運動修正との関係

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between baseball expertise and movement correction efficiency in a coincidence timing task that included unexpected changes in target velocity. In particular, we focused on the rate of movement timing correction that is applied to counter unexpected change in the velocity of a moving target under given time constraints. The participants comprised baseball experts (n=11) and novices (n=11). The task was to manually press a button coinciding with the arrival of a moving target, running on a straight trackway. The target moved from one end of the trackway at a constant velocity, and its velocity was increased or decreased in some trials when it reached the other end of the track with a moving target velocity change (TAVC) from 100 to 300ms. The differences in the rate of movement timing correction between the two groups were more evident when the velocity decreased than when it increased. The rate of movement timing correction for the experts was significantly higher than that for the novices under the 100ms and 300ms TAVC conditions. These results indicate that baseball experts can correct movement timing more efficiently than novices when velocity decreases ; this suggests that efficient movement timing correction in response to an unexpected velocity change is one of the characteristics of baseball expertise.

The Knickerbockers: <i>San Francisco's First Baseball Team?</i>

On September 23, 1931, prior to a Mission Reds-Hollywood Stars Pacific Coast League baseball game, an Old-Timers Day was celebrated at San Francisco's brand new Seals Stadium. The 40 honorees were divided into two teams recalling old California League of 1880s: Pioneers and Haverleys. Appropriately, at least four of old timers had either been members of those two venerable teams, or of Greenwood and Morans, another California League team of that bygone era.Almost half a century before Seals Stadium nostalgia-fest, a similar baseball reunion was held at Recreation Grounds at 25th and Folsom Streets. The date was Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1882, and occasion was commemoration of, as written in next day's San Francisco Chronicle, the twenty-second anniversary of introduction of baseball on Pacific Coast.As in 1931, 21 veterans of Eagle, Pacific, Liberty, and Empire Base Ball Clubs of 1860s and 1870s were divided into two teams: Eagles and Pacifics. These two teams, long and bitter rivals, had very deep roots in San Francisco baseball history. A half dozen of these baseball veterans had had singular honor of representing their clubs in a series of games against legendary Cincinnati Red Stockings when they visited San Francisco 13 years earlier.The arrival of Red Stockings in San Francisco on September 23, 1869, was an unprecedented event: An baseball club came to play city's best nines. Not just any eastern club-this was legendary Cincinnati Red Stockings, sport's first openly professional team. While San Francisco's best base ball clubs were no threat to Red Stockings' 45-game winning streak, city looked forward to prospect of an entertaining six-game display of baseball expertise at Recreation Grounds, San Francisco's premier sporting venue.The local newspapers fawned over arrival of team that had created such a furor back east. On September 24, San Francisco Bulletin printed an article summarizing city's history of baseball. It began:The first appearance of baseball on this coast, according to records in charge of Mr. [John] Durkee, one of pioneer baseball players on this coast and an enthusiast in game, was 1859. The Eagle Club was organized in November, 1859, and first game of baseball according to New York rules occurred at Center's Bridge February 22, 1860 between Eagles and Red Rovers.The article related well known tale of contentious game that stood at 33-all after nine innings, and Red Rovers' refusal to continue play, complaining that pitching of Eagle J. C. Willock was illegal. Finding no fault with Willock's delivery, umpire declared game a forfeit and awarded victory to Eagles.Three of 1882 honorees had participated in that landmark game at Center's Bridge on Washington's Birthday in 1860: John Fisher, J. Kerrigan, and John Durkee, keeper of San Francisco's baseball records. Durkee played center field, batted eighth in Eagle lineup, and scored three of his team's thirty-three runs in that momentous game.In 1867, two years before Cincinnati Red Stockings put San Francisco on baseball map, it was written in Pacific Base Ball Guide, published by Pacific Base Ball Convention of California, state's governing body for baseball:Previous to year 1859, game of base ball as it was then played in east, was unknown on this Coast, but in that year a few members of Eagle Club, of New York, organized a club in this city and styled themselves San Franciscans.1Since at least 1869 Durkee's records have been undisputed foundation and mortar of almost 150 years of San Francisco baseball history. Although they were undoubtedly lost in fire of 1906, other documents based on those records did survive, supporting and validating to this day contention that baseball's Genesis in San Francisco was 1860 and that Garden of Eden was Center's Bridge. …

The Effect of Prior Knowledge and Metacognition on the Acquisition of a Reading Comprehension Strategy

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of expert knowledge and metacognitive knowledge on strategy acquisition using an ecologically valid task. Fourth- and fifth-grade boys were poor readers and baseball experts were trained in the use of a reading strategy (asking why questions), with instruction being embedded in either baseball or nonbaseball stories. The boys were tested for strategy use, recall, and accuracy of monitoring 1 to 3 days after training, then again after 2 to 3 weeks later. Boys trained using baseball stories demonstrated greater strategy use at both post-tests than boys trained using nonbaseball stories, indicating that knowledge base aided in the acquisition of a reading comprehension strategy. Boys with higher declarative metacognition scores demonstrated better strategy acquisition and increased literal recall. All types of recall were higher for baseball stories.

The role of children's expertise in a strategic memory task

In a study intended to replicate and extend the findings from a recent experiment by Schneider and Bjorklund (1992), the expert/novice paradigm was used with second- and fourth-grade children in a sort/recall task. Children were classified as experts or novices for their knowledge of baseball, then given two sort/recall tasks, with a list consisting of either baseball or nonbaseball terms. Experts recalled more than novices on the baseball list only. While both groups used organizational strategies at sorting on the nonbaseball list, experts were marginally more strategic than novices on the baseball list, and no differences were found between the groups on either list for clustering. Baseball experts used more adultlike categories, suggesting that their enhanced levels of recall were attributed in part to strategy use, although there was also evidence that most of the substantial recall difference between the groups was attributed to item-specific effects associated with a more elaborated knowledge base. A second experiment using fifth-grade children on a multitrial sort/recall task using the baseball list also found increased recall by experts, and also found evidence of strategic behavior at the sort phase for trials 3 and 4.

Outcome trees and baseball: A study of expertise and list-length effects

When people estimate the probability of an event using a list that includes all or most of the possible events, their estimate of that probability is lower than if the other possible events are not explicitly identified on the list (i.e., are collapsed into an all-other-possibilities category). This list-length (or pruning) effect has been demonstrated to occur even for people who have expertise or considerable knowledge in the event domain. We reasoned that the experts used in previous studies would be unlikely to have probabilistic representations of their problem domains (e.g., auto mechanics, auditors, hospitality managers). We used baseball experts ( n = 35) and novices ( n = 56) on the assumption that expertise in baseball almost certainly involves mental representations of probability for various baseball events. Subjects estimated the frequency of hits, walks, strikeouts, putouts, and “all other” outcomes for an average major league player in 100 times at bat. Other subjects estimated these event outcome frequencies in a short-list condition (e.g., strikeouts, walks, and “all other”). Strong list-length effects were observed with novices; the frequency estimate for strikeouts, for example, was nearly twice as high in the short-list condition as in the long-list condition. Experts, however, showed no list-length effect and their estimated probabilities were very near the actual (normatively correct) probabilities in all conditions. We argue that the omission effect can be overridden by strong mental representations of the family of possible events and/or a clear knowledge of the probabilities associated with the events. As well, we argue that list-length effects seem to result at least in part from an anchoring-and-adjustment strategy.

Domain-specific knowledge and memory performance: A comparison of high- and low-aptitude children.

Two studies compared memory performance and text comprehension of groups that were equivalent on domain-specific knowledge but differed in overall aptitude, to investigate whether prior knowledge about a particular domain or overall aptitude level was more important when the task was to acquire and use new information in the domain of interest. Both studies dealt with third-, fifuV, and seventh-grade soccer experts' and novices' memory and comprehension of a story dealing with a soccer game. Several measures of memory performance, memory monitoring, and text comprehension were used. Levels of soccer knowledge and of overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design. Neither study detected significant differences between high-aptitude and low-aptitude experts, regardless of their ages. Low aptitude experts outperformed high-aptitude novices on all memory and comprehension measures. The results indicate that domain-specific knowledge can compensate for low overall aptitude on domain-relate d cognitive tasks. Since the late 1970s, a growing body of research has examined the effects of domain-specific knowledge on memory strategies and performance on various memory tasks. These studies showed that children's prior knowledge substantially affects their choice of memory strategies and significantly influences memory performance (see Bjorklund, 1985; Chi & Ceci, 1987; Ornstein & Naus, 1985; Rabinowitz & Chi, 1987; Schneider & Pressley, 1989, for reviews). Undoubtedly, the most impressive evidence stems from studies contrasting the performance of experts and novices in a specific domain. Examples include studies of baseball expertise (Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979), studies of problem-solvi ng in physics (e.g., Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982), and studies comparing chess experts' and novices' strategies and moves (Chase & Simon, 1973; Chi, 1978). In one of the few developmental studies using the expertnovice paradigm, Chi (1978) was even able to demonstrate that child experts outperformed adult novices when the task was to memorize chess positions. From this study, it can be concluded that differences in domain-specific knowledge may outweigh all other memory differences between children and adults and can lead to impressive reversals of age-related improvements in cognitive performance. The superiority of the experts' performance was attributed to the impact of thenrich domain-specific knowledge, which enabled them to recognize many domain-relevant patterns automatically and to solve domain-specific problems. Given the powerful effects of domain-specific knowledge, a related question of interest—and the one of particular interest