New approaches to studyin decision making in sport

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach, namely immersive interactive virtual reality, as a means of studying perception/action and decision-making in sport. Virtual Reality is in essence a sophisticated interactive and immersive human-computer interface where a sensory environment (visual, haptic and/or acoustic) is simulated by a computer and is controlled by the interactive behaviour of the user. It is a versatile methodological tool that gives the experimenter complete control over complex environmental conditions and allows for an in-depth analysis of the user's behaviour. For instance, the systematic variation of the visual information available to the players (e.g. the ball trajectory and/or the run-up of the attacking/defending player) allows us to understand how the way the information changes over time influences decisions about when and how to act. The objective of this paper is to show how this technology allows us to study perception and action and how it can help us identify potential informational variables that players tune into when making decisions about what to do next (Bideau et al, 2010; Dessing & Craig, 2010).