On the Influence of Action Preference on Female Players' Gaze Behavior During Defense of Volleyball Attacks

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.

Differences in Decision-Making Behavior Between Elite and Amateur Team-Handball Players in a Near-Game Test Situation

Athletic features distinguishing experts from non-experts in team sports are relevant for performance analyses, talent identification and successful training. In this respect, perceptual-cognitive factors like decision making have been proposed to be important predictor of talent but, however, assessing decision making in team sports remains a challenging endeavor. In particular, it is now known that decisions expressed by verbal reports or micro-movements in the laboratory differ from those actually made in on-field situations in play. To address this point, our study compared elite and amateur players’ decision-making behavior in a near-game test environment including sport-specific sensorimotor responses. Team-handball players (N = 44) were asked to respond as quickly as possible to representative, temporally occluded attack sequences in a team-handball specific defense environment on a contact plate system. Specifically, participants had to choose and perform the most appropriate out of four prespecified, defense response actions. The frequency of responses and decision time were used as dependent variables representing decision-making behavior. We found that elite players responded significantly more often with offensive responses (p < 0.05, odds ratios: 2.76–3.00) in left-handed attack sequences. Decision time decreased with increasing visual information, but no expertise effect was found. We suppose that expertise-related knowledge and processing of kinematic information led to distinct decision-making behavior between elite and amateur players, evoked in a domain-specific and near-game test setting. Results also indicate that the quality of a decision might be of higher relevance than the required time to decide. Findings illustrate application opportunities in the context of performance analyses and talent identification processes.

Varying Degrees of Perception-Action Coupling and Anticipation in Handball Goalkeeping

Anticipation in sports is commonly investigated using perception-action uncoupled methods, thus raising questions regarding transferability of findings to the field. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of different degrees of perception-action coupling on anticipation in handball goalkeeping. Advanced, intermediate and novice handball goalkeepers watched videos of throws on the goal and were asked to anticipate throw direction via key press (perception-action artificial condition) and via natural movement response (perception-action simulated condition). Results reveal overall superior performance in the artificial compared to the simulated condition. Skill-based differences, however, were descriptively more pronounced in the simulated condition compared to the artificial condition. The findings further highlight the importance of more representative research methods to unravel perceptual-cognitive skill in sports.