Exploration of the perceptual-cognitive processes that contribute to in-game decision-making of Australian football umpires
- Authors: Larkin, Paul , Mesagno, Chrisopher , Berry, Jason , Spittle, Michael
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Vol. 16, no. 2 (2018), p. 112-124
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- Description: Decision-making is fundamental to officiating in all sports. It is well established in contemporary research that decision-making skills underpin umpire expertise; however, there is little understanding of the cognitive processes that contribute to in-game decision-making. This research implemented an in-depth case study approach, using qualitative methods, to explore the in-game decision-making process of three Australian football umpires. Concurrent and retrospective verbalisation methods were used to obtain verbal reports of the cognitive processes associated with decision-making. Findings identified three salient themes related to both in-game decision-making processes (i.e. decision evaluation, player intention during game-play) and umpire performance (i.e. knowledge of game-play). These themes contributed to the development of decision-making heuristics for Australian football umpires. This study provides initial evidence of the factors that may contribute to and/or affect in-game decision-making processes; however, additional exploration is necessary to further inform training programmes aimed to develop domain-specific decision-making skills and subsequent in-game performance. © 2016 International Society of Sport Psychology.
Imagery training for reactive agility : performance improvements for decision time but not overall reactive agility
- Authors: McNeil, Dominic , Spittle, Michael , Mesagno, Christopher
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Vol. , no. (2019), p. 1-17
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- Description: This study investigated the effects of imagery training on reactive agility and whether reacting to unpredictable stimuli could be improved using imagery. Forty-seven female athletes (Mage = 21.51, SD = 2.32) were randomly assigned to either a three-week physical training, imagery training, or control condition. Physical training condition involved physically rehearsing the reactive agility task, whereas the imagery training condition involved imagining the presenting stimulus and performing the reactive agility task. The control condition did no reactive agility training. A 3 (training conditions) x 7 (reactive agility performance components) mixed-model MANOVA was conducted to examine changes in reactive agility performance from the training interventions. Physical training improved decision time components and overall reactive agility performance. Imagery training improved Stimulus-Decision Time and Stimulus-Foot performance, but not overall reactive agility performance. No performance improvements occurred for the control condition. Findings support imagery use for the decision time variables associated with lightstimulus reactive agility performance. The lack of overall reactive performance improvement may indicate that imagery training is not effective for all components of perceptual-motor performance. Performance change inconsistencies appear to indicate that participants may not have generated unpredictable stimuli during imagery. Future investigation as to whether imagery improvements translate to sport-specific reactive tasks is needed.