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

任何感知系统要想正确地运行，它必须能够向感知者提供信息，以便正确地做两件事。它必须告诉感知者，他们什么时候应该尝试操作一个动作，更重要的是，他们什么时候不应该这样做。例如，当徒步旅行者在北极遇到裂缝时，他们必须考虑是否跳下去。当不确定性存在时，失败会带来可怕的后果。这些行动决定被认为是由一个人的感知承受能力决定的，这种承受能力被定义为在给定有机体的行动能力的特定环境中可以执行的行动(Gibson，1979)。想想在桌子上看到一个咖啡杯。如果那个杯子是可以拿到的，那么那个杯子的价格就是够得着的。如果我们前面提到的裂缝可以被我们的徒步旅行者攀登，那么裂缝就可以跳下去了。大量研究发现，人们有能力决定和更新他们对各种动作的承受能力，包括爬楼梯、过洞口、伸手、抓住、跳跃和抓住(Barsingerhorn等人，2012)。然而，这些先前的研究主要是在稀疏的、可控的环境中进行的简单动作(Linkenauger等人，2009)。此外，这些研究没有考虑环境动态的不确定性。因此，人们对体育相关环境中的负担感知知之甚少，因为复杂的动作是在一个复杂的、不断变化的环境中进行的，涉及到竞争对手。在大多数竞技体育运动中，一个无处不在但又至关重要的动作是拦截：阻止一个物体继续射门的行为，通常是在与对手竞争中。在橄榄球、美式足球、篮球、场地/冰球、投篮和橄榄球等团队运动中，成功与否在很大程度上取决于在对方球员之前拦截目标(球)的能力。然而，据我们所知，很少或没有研究调查球员在竞争环境中如何感知拦截的负担(Araujo等人，2017年)。确定运动员在不同情况下如何做出拦截决定，可以让教练成为一种有用的指导工具，从而提高运动成绩。

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.