title: Individual differences in the visual control of intercepting a penalty kick in association football.
abstract: Recent perceptual-motor studies have revealed variations in learning trajectories of novices. Despite such observation, relatively little attention has been paid to studying individual differences in experienced performers' perceptual-motor behaviors. The present study examined individual differences for a visual anticipation task. Experienced association football goalkeepers attempted to intercept penalty kicks taken with deceptive and non-deceptive kicking actions. Data revealed that differences in the action capabilities of goalkeepers affected the timing and accuracy of movement response behaviors. Faster goalkeepers tended to wait until later before initiating movement in comparison with slower goalkeepers. The study of affordances in sport environments offers a theoretical framework with which to overcome some of the reported methodological limitations in the visual anticipation literature.
authors.affiliation: German Sport University Cologne, Institute of Cognitive and Team/Racket Sport Research, Am Sportpark Müngersdorf 6, 50933 Köln, Germany. m.dicks@dshs-koeln.de
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dicks
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Davids
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Button
mesh_terms: D005538:Football; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult