The Perception of the Affordances for Interception in Sports-Related Environments

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For any perceptual system to perform properly, it must be able to provide the perceiver with theinformation to do two things properly. It must tell the perceiver when they should attempt toperform an action and, arguably more importantly, when they should not. For example, when ahiker in the arctic encounters a crevasse, they must contemplate whether or not to jump. Whenuncertainty exists, failing has dire consequences.These action decisions are hypothesized to be determined by one's perceived affordances, definedas actions that can be performed in a specific environment given the action capabilities of theorganism (Gibson, 1979). Consider seeing a coffee mug on a table. If that mug is reachable, then anaffordance for that mug is reaching. If our aforementioned crevasse can be scaled by our hiker, thenthe crevasse affords jumping. A wealth of research has found that people are competent atdetermining and updating their affordances for a variety of actions including stair climbing, aperturepassing, reaching, grasping, jumping, and catching (Barsingerhorn et al, 2012).However, these previous studies have been conducted largely on simple actions in sparse,controlled environments (Linkenauger et al., 2009). Additionally, these studies do not consideruncertainty in the dynamics of the environment. As a result, little is known about affordanceperception in sports-related environments, where complicated actions are performed in acomplex, constantly changing environment involving competitors. A ubiquitous, yet vital action inmost competitive sports is interception: the act of preventing an object from continuing itstrajectory, often in competition with an opponent. Success in team sports like football, Americanfootball, basketball, field/ice hockey, netball, and rugby heavily relies on the ability to intercept thetarget (ball) before an opposing player. However, to our knowledge, little/no research has beenconducted investigating how players' perceive affordances for interception in competitiveenvironments (Araujo et al., 2017). Determining how athletes make decisions for interception indifferent scenarios could allow coaches a useful tool for instruction, leading to improved athleticperformance.