Posture-related affordances guide attacks in basketball

Pedro T. Esteves, Rita F. de Oliveira, Duarte Araújo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

72 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the decision made by the attacker to drive to the left or right of the defender. Method: Participants were 32 novice and intermediate basketball players who were assigned the role of attacker or defender in a one-on-one subphase. We manipulated the defender's posture and measured both the postures of defenders and attackers and the ensuing decision on drive direction. Results: As hypothesized, the posture of defenders guided the decision behavior of the attacker. Both novice and intermediate attackers made the same affordance-based decision by driving to the side of the defender's most advanced foot, but only when the distance between attacker and defender was small. Moreover, novice attackers conveyed postural information regarding their upcoming drive direction while intermediate attackers were better able to conceal this information. Conclusions: These results lend further support to the notion of information-based control of interpersonal actions in sport contexts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)639-644
Number of pages6
JournalPsychology of Sport and Exercise
Volume12
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Action
  • Decision making
  • Perception
  • Sport psychology
  • Training
  • Visual information

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