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

任何感知系统要正常工作，它必须能够为感知者提供信息，使其正确地做两件事。它必须告诉感知者什么时候应该尝试执行一个动作，更重要的是，什么时候不应该。例如，当一个徒步旅行者在北极遇到一个裂缝时，他们必须考虑是否要跳下去。当不确定性存在时，失败会带来可怕的后果。假设这些行动决定是由一个人的感知能力决定的，它被定义为在给定生物体的行动能力的特定环境中可以执行的行动（Gibson, 1979）。想象一下桌子上的咖啡杯。如果那个杯子是可及的，那么这个杯子的功能是可及的。如果我们前面提到的裂缝可以被我们的徒步旅行者攀登，那么裂缝就可以跳跃。大量研究发现，人们有能力确定和更新各种动作的能力，包括爬楼梯、通过孔口、伸手、抓握、跳跃和抓住（Barsingerhorn et al, 2012）。然而，这些先前的研究主要是针对稀疏、受控环境中的简单动作进行的（Linkenauger et al., 2009）。此外，这些研究没有考虑环境动力学中的不确定性。因此，在与运动相关的环境中，复杂的动作是在一个复杂的、不断变化的、涉及竞争对手的环境中进行的，人们对运动环境中的负担感知之甚少。在大多数竞技体育运动中，拦截是一种普遍而重要的动作：通常在与对手的比赛中，阻止物体继续其轨迹的行为。在像足球、美式足球、篮球、田径/冰球、无挡板篮球和橄榄球这样的团队运动中，成功在很大程度上依赖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/没有研究调查玩家如何在竞争环境中感知拦截的可视性（Araujo et al., 2017）。确定运动员如何在不同的情况下做出拦截决定可以让教练成为一个有用的指导工具，从而提高运动员的表现。

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.