Motion extrapolation in sport expertise: representational momentum and representational gravity in volleyball athletes

• Autor(a) principal: Rodrigues, Mariana Maio
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/39845
• topic: Volleyball; Sports expertise; Motion perception; Representational momentum; Representational gravity

When people indicate the vanishing location of a moving target that suddenly disappears, a systematic error forward, in the direction of motion, and downward, in the direction of gravity, emerge. These spatial displacements were coined, respectively, Representational Momentum and Representational Gravity, and are believed to reflect internalized ecologically relevant physical invariants useful for the anticipation of future states of an event. Previous research has shown that experts, particularly for events within their area of expertise, exhibit increased Representational Momentum, indicating enhanced motion extrapolation and anticipation. However, the influence of expertise on Representational Gravity, particularly in contexts where anticipation of vertically moving objects is crucial, remains understudied. This study aimed to address this gap by focusing on Volleyball as a context of expertise due to the prevalence of fast vertically moving balls. Volleyball athletes and non-athletes indicated the perceived offset location of a smoothly moving target, which moved at a constant speed or experienced acceleration/deceleration, embedded either in a Volleyball or neutral context. Outcomes revealed that for the Volleyball context, athletes, but not non-athletes, revealed a significant trend to misperceive targets moving along the left diagonal to be further displaced forward beyond what would be expected due to Representational Momentum alone. This finding is discussed in relation to the natural statistics of Volleyball games, where crossed ball trajectories, particularly by the outside hitter, are more prevalent, fast and offensive, requiring better anticipation to be efficiently dealt with.