Motor competence is not enough: Handedness does not facilitate visual anticipation of same-handed action outcome

Effector-specific improvements in action prediction in left-handed individuals after short-term physical practice

Research has established the influence of short-term physical practice for enhancing action prediction in right-handed (RH) individuals. In addition to benefits of physical practice for these later assessed perceptual-cognitive skills, effector-specific interference has been shown through action-incongruent secondary tasks (motor interference tasks). Here we investigated this experience-driven facilitation of action predictions and effector-specific interference in left-handed (LH) novices, before and after practicing a dart throwing task. Participants watched either RH (n = 19) or LH (n = 24) videos of temporally occluded dart throws, across a control condition and three secondary-task conditions: tone-monitoring, RH or LH force monitoring. These conditions were completed before and after physical practice throwing with the LH. Significantly greater improvement in prediction accuracy was shown post-practice for the LH- versus RH-video group. Consistent with previous work, effector-specific interference was shown, exclusive to the LH-video group. Only when doing the LH force monitoring task did the LH-video group show secondary task interference in prediction accuracy. These data support the idea that short-term physical practice resulted in the development of an effector-specific motor representation. The results are also consistent with other work in RH individuals (showing RH motor interference) and hence rule out the interpretation that these effector specific effects are due to the disruption of more generalized motor processes, thought to be lateralized to the left-hemisphere of the brain.

The influence of pitcher handedness on pitch-calling behavior: Insights from fMRI study on baseball umpires

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study delves into the impact of experience and pitcher handedness on the pitch-calling behavior of baseball umpires. Expert and intermediate umpires were asked to make ball/strike calls on videotaped pitches of left- and right-handed pitchers and rate their certainty for the call while undergoing scanning. Behavioral results replicated previous findings that expert umpires were more certain but not more accurate or quicker than intermediate umpires, suggesting that, as sports officials, umpires may learn to project confidence to maintain control of the game. At the neural level, expert umpires exhibited more extensive and pronounced activations within the action observation network, dorsal striatum, and cerebellum. These heightened neural responses were probably associated with their enhanced visual processing abilities for pitching action and ball trajectory, honed over years of officiating. Notably, both expert and intermediate umpires exhibited decreased accuracy when judging pitches from left-handed pitchers compared to right-handed ones. These challenges in accuracy corresponded with weaker neural activations in the aforementioned brain regions, implying difficulties in processing specific visual details of the rarely encountered left-handed pitchers. Moreover, slightly longer reaction times and reduced uncertainty were observed particularly for left-handed ball pitches, as revealed by lower activation in the right premotor cortex, highlighting issues with predictive processing. In summary, our findings shed light on the influence of pitcher handedness on the pitch-calling behavior of baseball umpires and extend the current understanding of the perceptual and decision-making behavior of sports officials.

Expert goalkeepers' and coaches' views on anticipation and cue utilisation facing backcourt throws in handball goalkeeping

Introduction

Handball goalkeepers have to act under severe spatio-temporal pressure in both standardised (e.g., 7 m penalty) and non-standardised situations (e.g., backcourt throws) which require them to predict action outcome before ball flight is visible. So far, research on goalkeepers' cue utilisation for anticipation of an opponent's action has mainly focused on 7 m throw situations whereas little attention has been paid to the latter, more complex and far more frequently occurring backcourt throw situations.

Methods

To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with N = 6 expert handball goalkeepers and goalkeeper coaches [all of whom were (former) expert handball goalkeepers] on anticipation and cue utilisation when facing backcourt throws. The interviews were subsequently transcribed, coded and results were inductively as well as deductively categorised by means of a thematic analysis.

Results

Results reveal a variety of kinematic and contextual cues relevant for action anticipation that become available before the game and before or during the throw. Participants reported to use information from the offence (e.g., thrower's jump; opposing team's task distribution) and the defence (e.g., defensive players' strategies, block position) for anticipation in backcourt throw situations. Additionally, we identified several factors that influence cue availability and utilisation.

Discussion

Our findings provide a thorough basis to (a) guide future research that yields questions on kinematic and contextual cue integration and in-situ cue usage as well as (b) inform the development of training programs to foster goalkeepers' anticipatory skill.

Are they all born to score? The relationship between throwing arm and scoring from the 7-meter line in semi-professional handball

ABSTRACTIndications of laterall biases favouring left-handers have been found in various sports; especially interactive sports where the athletes have limited time to react to incoming objects. The aim of this study was therefore to explore whether any lateral biases exist in handball by examining 7-meter shots. A total of 6846 7-meter throws from 240 7-meter shooters across four seasons in the semi-professional Icelandic elite handball division (male and female) were analyzed. Out of the 240 7-meter shooters, of which 151 were male and 89 were female, 22% were left-handed (22% of the males and 20% of the females). The left-handed 7-meter shooters took a disproportionate number of the 7-meter shots, with left-handed shooters performing 29% of the 7-meter shots (27% in the male league and 33% in the female league). The results of a Bayesian two-level analysis indicated that left-handedness is not associated with greater success from the 7-meter line at the semi-professional level.

The Intricate Web of Asymmetric Processing of Social Stimuli in Humans

Although the population-level preference for the use of the right hand is the clearest example of behavioral lateralization, it represents only the best-known instance of a variety of functional asymmetries observable in humans. What is interesting is that many of such asymmetries emerge during the processing of social stimuli, as often occurs in the case of human bodies, faces and voices. In the present paper, after reviewing previous literature about human functional asymmetries for social and emotional stimuli, we suggest some possible links among them and stress the necessity of a comprehensive account (in both ontogenetic and phylogenetic terms) for these not yet fully explained phenomena. In particular, we propose that the advantages of lateralization for emotion processing should be considered in light of previous suggestions that (i) functional hemispheric specialization enhances cognitive capacity and efficiency, and (ii) the alignment (at the population level) of the direction of behavioral asymmetries emerges, under social pressures, as an evolutionary stable strategy.

Individual Differences and Transfer of Visual Anticipation in Expert Female Field Hockey Goalkeepers

SIGNIFICANCE

Visual anticipation is vital for performance in several domains such as driving, military, and high-speed interceptive sports, as it enables performers to handle severe time constraints. There has been little investigation into individual differences of anticipation skill transfer within a domain, which can guide training of anticipation to improve performance.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to investigate individual differences in the transfer of anticipation within a domain, specifically anticipation of the field hockey penalty corner drag-flick across different opponents.

METHODS

Eight female Australian international and national field hockey goalkeepers participated. Goalkeepers completed female and male opponent penalty corner drag-flick temporal occlusion tests that presented contextual defensive runner positioning relative to the penalty spot, drag-flicker kinematics, and ball flight.

RESULTS

Drag-flick movement time and ball velocity were significantly different across female and male opponents confirming that a transfer continuum existed. Five goalkeepers could transfer integration of runner contextual and drag-flicker kinematic information to anticipate loose runs above chance from female to male opponent tests. None of the goalkeepers could transfer integration of contextual and kinematic information for the tight runs across female to male opponents.

CONCLUSIONS

An individual differences approach with truly expert performers provided unique insights into the mechanism of anticipation transfer within a domain. The findings of this study contribute to theoretical and applied knowledge, which can guide the training of anticipation skill to prepare individuals for superior performance.

Hemifield-Specific Rotational Biases during the Observation of Ambiguous Human Silhouettes

Both static and dynamic ambiguous stimuli representing human bodies that perform unimanual or unipedal movements are usually interpreted as right-limbed rather than left-limbed, suggesting that human observers attend to the right side of others more than the left one. Moreover, such a bias is stronger when static human silhouettes are presented in the RVF (right visual field) than in the LVF (left visual field), which might represent a particular instance of embodiment. On the other hand, hemispheric-specific rotational biases, combined with the well-known bias to perceive forward-facing figures, could represent a confounding factor when accounting for such findings. Therefore, we investigated whether the lateralized presentation of an ambiguous rotating human body would affect its perceived handedness/footedness (implying a role of motor representations), its perceived spinning direction (implying a role of visual representations), or both. To this aim, we required participants to indicate the perceived spinning direction (which also unveils the perceived handedness/footedness) of ambiguous stimuli depicting humans with an arm or a leg outstretched. Results indicated that the lateralized presentation of the stimuli affected both their perceived limb laterality (a larger number of figures being interpreted as right-limbed in the RVF than in the LVF) and their perceived spinning direction (a larger number of figures being interpreted as spinning clockwise in the LVF than in the RVF). However, the hemifield of presentation showed a larger effect size on the perceived spinning direction than on the perceived limb laterality. Therefore, as we already proposed, the implicit representation of others’ handedness seems to be affected more by visual than by motor processes during the perception of ambiguous human silhouettes.