Abstract

Thirty female college students consisting of 15 experienced and 15 novice basketball players were compared for (a) the speed and accuracy of detection performance, (b) recall ability, and (c) mode of control in visual search in structured and unstructured basketball situations. The basketball players mode of control in visual search process was examined through the adoption of Prinzs hurdle paradigm. Each subject scanned 64 sport slides consisting of structured and unstructured plays for the presence or absence of a target item (basketball) and hurdle item (orange triangle) for a 5-second period. Speed and accuracy of ball or hurdle detection were measured by the subject response to presence or absence of the target or hurdle item. After the 5-second viewing, players recalled as many players as possible on a grid depicting the basketball court. Two Randomized Repeated Measures Design ANOVA models indicated that: (a) the experienced players overall speed of target detection and player recall were superior and significantly different than that of novice players, (b) the overall accuracy in detecting the target item was similar for both experienced and novice players, (c) both groups of players could accurately detect and recall a structured play better than an unstructured play, with the experienced player being superior in both situations, and (d) the speed of detection of both groups of players was not affected by the difference in structured and unstructured plays. The finding pertaining to the control of visual search was that the presence or absence of the hurdle item did not affect speed by experience level or accuracy of detection indicating that the visual search of both experienced and novice players may have operated under target control. Verf.-Referat