New methodologies to explain and improve the expert anticipatory advantage in sports decision making

运动员是非凡的：他们始终如一的表现水平让我们大多数人看起来像笨拙的孩子。人们很容易猜测，优秀的运动员表现完全是对身体的训练，但控制我们行动的是大脑。在这项研究中，我们希望深入到优秀运动员的内心，了解支持他们惊人技能的神经过程。我们最感兴趣的是专家们如何能够快速理解体育场景。举个例子，板球击球手必须根据球的运动轨迹选择击球，而球的运动速度可能高达每小时160公里。球可以在空中“摇摆”，当它在到达击球手之前从球场上反弹时，会产生额外的偏差。击球手根本没有足够的时间来解释球的轨迹并做出相应的反应。由于这个原因，高级板球运动员使用从投球手释放球之前的信息开始准备他们的投篮。具体地说，他们似乎利用了保龄球手臂相对于保龄球手的运动，主要是在前脚撞击和球释放之间。因此，他们会根据对手移动身体的方式来预测比赛结果。我们是怎么知道这些的？之前的研究测试了不同水平的击球手，向他们展示了冲过来的投球手的视频，并小心地删除了视频的某些部分，以欺骗击球手做出错误的反应。逻辑是，如果击球手在一条信息被拿走后不能再正确使用，那么他们一定是在表现良好时使用了这条信息。我们还不知道的是，他们的大脑是如何权衡不同信息的，以及我们如何帮助年轻的击球手快速学习这些预期技能，并达到精英水平。在本研究中，我们将引入一种复杂的技术来巧妙地降低专家预期所依赖的视觉信息。这种技术被称为分类图像分析，它使我们能够精确地测量正在使用的信息，而且还可以估计可能使用但运动员目前未能使用的信息。然后，我们将测试定制的训练计划，以促使运动员利用未开发的信息。最后，我们将调查在训练过程中有针对性的脑电刺激是否真的能帮助他们更好地学习。这项研究应该有助于英国教练帮助我们的运动员充分发挥他们的潜力。这一点很重要，因为我们的运动员为我们社会的文化和福祉做出了重大贡献。此外，从长远来看，我们相信我们在这里开发的培训方法可以应用于一系列其他领域，例如，帮助我们日益老龄化的人口保持驾驶技能，从而使我们所有人受益。

Athletes are extraordinary: They consistently perform at a level that makes most of us seem like clumsy children. It is tempting to surmise that elite athletic performance is all about training the body, but it is the brain that controls our actions. In this research, we hope to get inside the mind of an elite athlete and understand the neural processes that support their amazing skills.Our primary interest is in how experts are able to quickly make sense of sporting scenarios as they unfold. To take one example, a cricket batsman must select a shot based on the trajectory of a ball which may travel at up to 160 km per hour. The ball can "swing" through the air, and take an additional deviation when it bounces off the pitch before reaching the batsman. There simply isn't enough time for the batsman to interpret the ball's trajectory and react accordingly. For this reason, advanced cricketers use information from prior to the moment at which the bowler releases the ball to start preparing their shot. Specifically, they seem to make use of the motion of the bowling arm, in relation to the bowling hand, primarily between the time of front foot impact and ball release. They are therefore anticipating a sporting outcome based on the way their opponents are moving their bodies.How do we know all of this? Previous research has tested batsmen of different levels of expertise by showing them videos of onrushing bowlers and carefully removing some sections of the video, to trick the batsmen into making the wrong response. The logic goes that if a batsman can no longer get it right when a piece of information is taken away, they must have been using that piece of information when they were performing well. What we don't yet know is exactly how their brains are weighting the different pieces of information, and also how we can help young batsmen learn these anticipatory skills quickly and to an elite level.In this research, we will introduce a sophisticated technique to subtly degrade the visual information on which expert anticipation depends. This technique, known as classification image analysis, allows us to precisely measure the information that is being used, but also to estimate the information that could be used but which an athlete is currently failing to make use of. We will then test bespoke training schemes which prompt athletes to make use of the untapped information. Finally, we will investigate whether targeted electrical brain stimulation during training can actually help them learn better. This research should help UK coaches help our athletes reach their full potential. This is important, because our athletes make a significant contribution to the culture and wellbeing of our society. Furthermore, in the longer term we believe that the training approaches we develop here may be applied to a range of other fields, for example to help maintain driving skills in our increasingly ageing population, and thus be of benefit to us all.