Citation

Diaz GJ, Fajen BR, Phillips F. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 2012; 38(4): 848-864.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0026962

PMID

22309088

Abstract

People can often anticipate the outcome of another person's actions based on visual information available in the movements of the other person's body. We investigated this problem by studying how goalkeepers anticipate the direction of a penalty kick in soccer. The specific aim was to determine whether the information used to anticipate kick direction is best characterized as local to a particular body segment or distributed across multiple segments. In Experiment 1, we recorded the movements of soccer players as they kicked balls into a net. Using a novel method for analyzing motion capture data, we identified sources of local and distributed information that were reliable indicators of kick direction. In Experiments 2 and 3, subjects were presented with animations of kickers' movements prior to foot-to-ball contact and instructed to judge kick direction. Judgments were consistent with the use of distributed information, with a possible small contribution of local information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en