Abstract
(Deutsch)
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There is a vast amount of research trying to identify perceptual-cognitive mediators of expert performance and decision making in sport tasks (for a review, see Mann, Williams, Ward, & Janelle, 2007). In this scope, decision making seems highly dependent on visual information. Therefore, most research had concentrated on the manipulation of visual stimuli, presented as images or videos using spatial or temporal occlusion techniques. Alternatively, gaze behaviour was analyzed using eye tracking equipment, for example in Farrow and Abernethy (2007). Thus far, only a few studies, e.g. Wood and Wilson (2010), analyzed the decision making process in real world settings by using mobile eye tracking equipment. Due to the large amount of manual data analysis involved in this method, most studies comprise of a very small number of participants. Furthermore, most mobile eye tracking devices offer only a low temporal resolution, so that a proper analysis of gaze kinematics (e.g. saccadic movements) is nearly impossible. Additionally, own tests with different mobile eye tracking devices revealed that in dynamic situations the accuracy of the results obtained is fairly low and the measured gaze positions need to be continuously readjusted by “educated guess” of the current position. Last, most mobile eye tracking devices only allow for very small mobility as participants get directly connected to heavy recording devices, which need to be powered, or need to stay close to a desktop, as the length of cabling is limited. Thus, the question arises whether the inferences mentioned above provide sufficient validity for generalization, especially in the research on expertise. In particular, it has been shown in Mann, Abernethy and Farrow (2010), that experts’ perceptual advantages in-crease with higher “in-situ”-ness of the response, while most laboratory studies allowed for spatially limited responses (verbal, button press, contact-mats) only. Further, it has been shown that perceptual-motor decision making changes over different types of responses (e.g. Farrow and Abernethy, 2007). Thus far, the relation between expertise, gaze and decision making has rarely been studied in comprehensive and complex action conditions, to emulate on-field perception and action. The current study will develop and implement action-based decision measures in beach volleyball defensive situations in a realistic context in comparison with more abstract traditional verbal response under different temporal occlusion conditions. Consequently, from a theoretical as well as an applied point of view, it seems necessary to identify gaze strategies by equipment with high temporal and spatial resolution, while keeping both, stimuli as well as re-sponses, similar to the real-world situation. Therefore, we integrated a lightweight, mobile eye tracking device (EyeSeeCam; Kohlbecher, Bartl, Bardins, & Schneider, 2010) into our sensorimotor lab, allowing for synchronous recording of gross-scale motion with the participants’ gaze in the laboratory frame-of-reference, while displaying life size visual stimuli.
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