A multiple-cue learning approach as the basis for understanding and improving soccer referees' decision making.
A significant proportion of all referee decisions during a soccer match are about fouls and misconduct. We argue that most of these decisions can be considered as a perceptual-categorization task in which the referee has to categorize a set of features into two discrete classes (foul/no-foul). Due to the dynamic nature of tackling situations in football, these features share a probabilistic rather that a deterministic relationship with the decision criteria. Accordingly, these processes can be studied on the basis of a multiple-cue learning framework as proposed by Brunswick (1955), which focuses among others on how people learn from repeated exposure to probabilistic information. Such learning processes have been studied on a wide range of tasks, but until now not (to our knowledge) in the area of judging sport performance. We suggest that decision accuracy of referees can be improved by creating a learning environment that fits the requirements of this theoretical perspective.
Plessner
Henning
H
Institute of Psychology 1, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. plessner@uni-leipzig.de
Schweizer
Geoffrey
G
Brand
Ralf
R
O'Hare
David
D
D054874:Athletic Performance / Q000523:psychology*; D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D011337:Probability Learning; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis