Gaze Behavior in a Natural Environment with a Task-Relevant Distractor: How the Presence of a Goalkeeper Distracts the Penalty Taker

Task-Dependent Visual Behavior in Immersive Environments: A Comparative Study of Free Exploration, Memory and Visual Search

Visual behavior depends on both bottom-up mechanisms, where gaze is driven by the visual conspicuity of the stimuli, and top-down mechanisms, guiding attention towards relevant areas based on the task or goal of the viewer. While this is well-known, visual attention models often focus on bottom-up mechanisms. Existing works have analyzed the effect of high-level cognitive tasks like memory or visual search on visual behavior; however, they have often done so with different stimuli, methodology, metrics and participants, which makes drawing conclusions and comparisons between tasks particularly difficult. In this work we present a systematic study of how different cognitive tasks affect visual behavior in a novel within-subjects design scheme. Participants performed free exploration, memory and visual search tasks in three different scenes while their eye and head movements were being recorded. We found significant, consistent differences between tasks in the distributions of fixations, saccades and head movements. Our findings can provide insights for practitioners and content creators designing task-oriented immersive applications.

Body Pose Estimation Integrated With Notational Analysis: A New Approach to Analyze Penalty Kicks Strategy in Elite Football

Body orientation of football players has proven to be an informative resource related to successful penalty kicks. OpenPose is one of the most popular open-source pose estimation technologies. This study aims: (i) to verify whether OpenPose can detect relevant body orientation angles from video data of penalty kicks in elite football and (ii) to investigate the relationship between these body angles and observable behaviors analyzed via an observational system for penalty kick analysis in football (OSPAF) with the penalty taker and goalkeeper strategy. A total of 34 penalty videos, with standardized viewing angle, from the main European leagues (2017–2020) were analyzed. Relevant body orientation variables were selected for penalty kicks analysis and were extracted from video data through OpenPose technique. The OSPAF, previously validated by experts, was used. The mean confidence score of OpenPose measures was 0.80 ± 0.14. The mean kappa value for repeated measurements of OpenPose was 0.96 ± 0.04. Logistic regressions were performed to investigate the relationship between OpenPose investigated variables (penalty taker: shoulder, hips, and nonkicking foot orientation; goalkeeper: right and left foot, anticipation), observable behaviors (OSPAF variables), and the strategy (penalty taker: goalkeeper dependent or independent; goalkeeper: shooter dependent or independent) in penalty kicks. The selected body orientation angle (goalkeeper anticipation) measured through OpenPose correlated significantly with the goalkeeper strategy. The prediction model of the goalkeeper's strategy had its accuracy increased to 97% when the variable goalkeeper anticipation was included [χ(35)2 = 49.648, p < 0.001]. Lower degrees of goalkeeper anticipation, the goalkeeper tactical action (awaiting), and run up speed (slow) were associated with a kicker-dependent strategy. Regarding the penalty taker, the selected body angles measured through OpenPose did not associate significantly with the shooter strategy. Body orientation analysis by using OpenPose has shown sufficient reliability and provides practical applications for analyzing the strategies adopted by goalkeepers in penalty kicks in elite football.

Adaptive Gaze Behavior and Decision Making of Penalty Corner Strikers in Field Hockey

In recent years, studies have increasingly dealt with the interaction of gaze behavior and decision making of team sports athletes. However, there is still a variety of important game situations, for example, in the case of penalty corners in field hockey, in which this interaction has not been investigated in detail yet. Penalty corners present a meaningful goal scoring opportunity by providing a relatively free shot. This paper considers two studies. The first study investigated a possible connection between the gaze behavior and the quality of decisions of experienced field hockey players and evaluated the level of success of different gaze strategies. A preliminary study (Study 1) was designed as a survey questionnaire with the aim of preparing for the main study by obtaining subjective assessments of the individual gaze behavior and decision making of professional athletes. In the second and the main study (Study 2), the gaze behavior of experienced field hockey players was recorded using mobile eye-tracking systems to analyze different strategical approaches in associated gaze behavior and decision making. Study 1 showed that players consider reacting to the defenders' behavior during a penalty corner a promising avenue for improving success at penalty corner attempts. It also indicated that such defense-dependent strategies are currently only rarely employed. Study 2 demonstrated how gaze behavior differs between different strategical approaches of the offense. It was shown that the gaze direction on the ball, the stopper, and the goal area is important to allow for a more optimal adaptation to the tactical behavior of defense. It can be concluded that adaptive decision making (i.e., choosing which variation will be carried out just after the "injection" of the ball) seems promising but requires further training to improve the success rate of penalty corner.

Reading the Future from Body Movements -Anticipation in Handball

In speed-based sports that require fast reactions, the most accurate predictions are made once the players have seen the ball trajectory. However, waiting for the ball trajectory does not leave enough time for appropriate reactions. Expert athletes use kinematic information which they extract from the opponent's movements to anticipate the ball trajectory. Temporal occlusion, where only a part of the full movement sequence is presented, has often been used to research anticipation in sports. Unlike many previous studies, we chose occlusion points in video-stimuli of penalty shooting in handball based on the domain-specific analysis of movement sequences. Instead of relying on randomly chosen occlusion points, each time point in our study revealed a specific chunk of information about the direction of the ball. The multivariate analysis showed that handball goalkeepers were not only more accurate and faster than novices overall when predicting where the ball will end up, but that experts and novices also made their decisions based on different kinds of movement sequences. These findings underline the importance of kinematic knowledge for anticipation, but they also demonstrate the significance of carefully chosen occlusion points.

Moving Advertisements Systematically Affect Gaze Behavior and Performance in the Soccer Penalty Kick

The aim of the current study was to investigate whether a moving advertisement positioned behind the goal area would influence the visual attention of participants performing a soccer penalty kick, and, whether this would an effect on subsequent motor performance. It was hypothesized that if the (moving) advertisement would function as a distractor, then this would result in non-specific disruptions in penalty performance measures, especially affecting aiming location and precision. Alternatively, it was reasoned that, in line with the Dunker illusion, the moving advertisement would systematically affect perception of target location, resulting in changes in penalty performance and aiming that are specific for the direction of motion of the advertisement. To test these hypotheses, we investigated the gaze behavior and kicking performance of intermediate skilled soccer players taking penalty kicks in three differing advertisement conditions, namely no advertisement, a stationary advertisement, and a moving advertisement. The latter condition consisted of an advertisement moving from left to right and an advertisement moving from right to left. Results showed that a moving advertisement placed behind the goal area indeed caught the visual attention of soccer penalty kickers using a goalkeeper-dependent kicking strategy. Participants kicking performance tended to be less variable within the no advertisement condition compared to the moving advertisement condition. In addition, systematic, direction-specific effects on aiming were found when comparing conditions in which the advertisement moved in opposite directions. This pattern of findings indicate that the accuracy of the penalty kick is impacted by task-irrelevant contextual information.

Extending Research on Deception in Sport - Combining Perception and Kinematic Approaches

The spatio-temporal demands of many high performance sport contexts require a strategic interplay between anticipation from early kinematic cues and the appropriate movement strategy. Despite the importance of the interaction between observer and deceiver in these contexts, this dyad is usually considered separately (i.e., from perceptual-cognitive or kinematic perspectives). The present approach proposes a consolidation of perceptual-cognitive and kinematic perspectives into a dyad of deception that focuses on the interplay between opposing actors within antagonistic contexts. A framework is proposed for analyzing movement deception within this dyad. Applying a functional approach, the deceptive act is positioned as a means of optimally solving an antagonistic performance task with high spatio-temporal demands. The framework involves three elements: first, the context of the movement deception is evaluated relative to the constraints imposed by the athlete, object, and deceptive content. Together, these constraints generate a range of potential kinematic options for movement deception. Second, movement deception is determined by the spatio-temporal constraints of the original context. More simply, misleading information is only useful if it mimics elements of the genuine movement. Third, the framework emphasizes targeting the spatio-temporal interplay as well as differentiating between active and co(ntra)-active movement deception. Our goal with this framework is to supplement movement deception research by providing a conceptional context that can be applied across sports.

Prediction of action outcome: Effects of available information about body structure

Correctly perceiving the movements of opponents is essential in everyday life as well as in many sports. Several studies have shown a better prediction performance for detailed stimuli compared to point-light displays (PLDs). However, it remains unclear whether differences in prediction performance result from explicit information about articulation or from information about body shape. We therefore presented three different types of stimuli (PLDs, stick figures, and skinned avatars) with different amounts of available information of soccer players' run-ups. Stimulus presentation was faded out at ball contact. Participants had to react to the perceived shot direction with a full-body movement. Results showed no differences for time to virtual ball contact between presentation modes. However, prediction performance was significantly better for avatars and stick figures compared to PLDs, but did not differ between avatars and stick figures, suggesting that explicit information about the articulation of the major joints is mainly relevant for better prediction performance, and plays a larger role than detailed information about body shape. We also tracked eye movements and found that gaze behavior for avatars differed from those for PLDs and stick figures, with no significant differences between PLDs and stick figures. This effect was due to more and longer fixations on the head when avatars were presented.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball; the Impact of an Anticipatory Fixation During Successful and Unsuccessful Soccer Penalty Kicks

The success of a sporting task requiring an object to be kicked or hit toward a target (e.g., kicking a ball into a goal) is impacted by the length of the Quiet Eye (QE). Limitations in the ocular motor system mean that after impact, these fast moving objects are not tracked using smooth pursuit eye movements. Rather, anticipatory fixations are used to re-fixate ahead of the moving object.Using a soccer penalty kick, the current study investigated whether striking a stationary object to generate high ball velocity results in an anticipatory fixation prior to ball contact and if this occurs at detriment to the QE period and task success.Facing a goalkeeper, 12 participants produced a successful (scored) and unsuccessful (saved) penalty whilst wearing a mobile eye tracker.QE was longer in the successful compared to unsuccessful penalty (p = 0.036) and was due to QE offset ending later in the successful compared to unsuccessful penalty (p = 0.008). An anticipatory fixation occurred later (p = 0.025) and was shorter (p = 0.005) in successful compared to unsuccessful penalties. The football was kicked wider (more accurately) within the goal during the successful compared to unsuccessful penalty (p < 0.001). Results highlight the importance of the QE period in successfully executing a soccer penalty kick. Unsuccessful penalties were associated with shorter QE length and earlier QE offset, which was due to initiating an anticipatory fixation in prediction of tracking the fast moving football, resulting in kicking the ball more centrally in the goal, making it easier for the goalkeeper to save.

Behavioral performance and visual strategies during skill acquisition using a novel tool use motor learning task

Habitual tool use is considered a hallmark of human evolution. One potential explanation for humanity's advanced tool using abilities is that humans possess a unique neurobiological system that estimates efficient ways to manipulate objects with novel tools, resulting in rapid tool use motor learning. However, since humans regularly use a multitude of tools, examining these underlying processes is challenging. As such, we developed a tool use motor learning paradigm that utilizes a challenging tool (chopsticks) in order to accomplish a difficult behavioral task that requires extensive practice to continuously improve one's proficiency. We then assessed the paradigm by recruiting participants with little experience using chopsticks and training them over the course of eight training sessions to grasp marbles with chopsticks and drop them in a cylindrical container. Throughout training, we examined behavioral performance and visual strategies to determine whether practicing the task resulted in outcomes congruent with traditional motor learning. Results show that performance increases in a logarithmic pattern and is accompanied by decreased confirmatory visual strategies. Since these findings are congruent with those seen in traditional motor learning, this paradigm is a novel method for use in future research examining the underlying mechanisms that mediate tool use motor learning.

Goalkeepers' Reputations Bias Shot Placement in Soccer Penalties

Research has demonstrated that in addition to minor changes in goalkeepers' position or height, goalkeeper reputation seems to influence penalty takers' shot placement. However, this evidence is based on correlative designs. Here, the authors experimentally manipulated both height and reputation to examine their causal impact on actual shot placement. Penalty takers performed kicks facing goalkeepers of different height (tall vs. short) and reputation (high vs. low) projected on a life-size screen. Results showed that tall goalkeepers were judged as taller than short goalkeepers. Likewise, high-reputation goalkeepers were judged as taller than low-reputation goalkeepers. An important finding was that reputation also influenced shot placement. When facing high-reputation goalkeepers, penalty takers aimed farther away from the goalkeeper and missed the goal more often. It follows that reputation affects both height estimates of goalkeepers and, most important, shot placement. Consequently, manipulating perceived reputation of goalkeepers provides an avenue for sport professionals to subtly influence shot placement of penalty takers.

How the Experimental Setting Influences Representativeness: A Review of Gaze Behavior in Football Penalty Takers

This article reviews research on the gaze behavior of penalty takers in football. It focuses on how artificial versus representative experimental conditions affect gaze behavior in this far-aiming task. Findings reveal that-irrespective of the representativeness of the experimental conditions-different instructions regarding the aiming strategy and different threat conditions lead to different gaze patterns. Results also reveal that the goal size and the distance to the goal did not affect the gaze behavior. Moreover, it is particularly run-up conditions that lead to differences. These can be either artificial or more natural. During a natural run-up, penalty takers direct their gaze mainly toward the ball. When there is no run-up, they do not direct their gaze toward the ball. Hence, in order to deliver generalizable results with which to interpret gaze strategies, it seems important to use a run-up with a minimum length that is comparable to that in a real-life situation.