Probing expert anticipation with the temporal occlusion paradigm: Experimental investigations of some methodological issues

Copyright @ 2005 Human KineticsTwo experiments were conducted to examine whether the conclusions drawn regarding the timing of anticipatory information pick-up from temporal occlusion studies are influenced by whether (a) the viewing period is of variable or fixed duration and (b) the task is a laboratory-based one with simple responses or a natural one requiring a coupled, interceptive movement response. Skilled and novice tennis players either made pencil-and-paper predictions of service direction (Experiment 1) or attempted to hit return strokes (Experiment 2) to tennis serves while their vision was temporally occluded in either a traditional progressive mode (where more information was revealed in each subsequent occlusion condition) or a moving window mode (where the visual display was only available for a fixed duration with this window shifted to different phases of the service action). Conclusions regarding the timing of information pick-up were generally consistent across display mode and across task setting lending support to the veracity and generalisability of findings regarding perceptual expertise in existing laboratory-based progressive temporal occlusion studies.This study is funded by the Australian Institute of Sport Tennis program

Entanglement between living bacteria and quantized light witnessed by Rabi splitting

We model recent experiments on living sulphur bacteria interacting with quantised light, using the Dicke model. The strong coupling achieved between the bacteria and the light indicates that during the experiment the bacteria (treated as dipoles) and the quantized light are entangled. The vacuum Rabi splitting, which was measured in the experiment for a range of different parameters, can be used as an entanglement witness

A novel training tool for batters to watch the ball

postprintConference of Science, Medicine & Coaching in Cricket 2010, Queensland, Australia, 1-3 June 2010. In Conference Proceedings, 2010, p. 32-3

Anticipation and transfer of expert pattern perception

Conference Theme: Meeting New Challenges and Bridging Cultural Gaps in Sport and Exercise PsychologyINTRODUCTION: When an observer views a moving object that is abruptly halted, the human perceptual system continues to extrapolate the object’s movement, predicting it’s likely pathway and misrepresenting the final stopping point as being further along the original trajectory (Freyd & Johnson, 1987). This extrapolation of the temporal features is typically referred to as “representational momentum” (Freyd, 1987; Freyd & Finke, 1984; Intraub, 2002). It has been suggested that this phenomenon occurs because participants anticipate the trajectory of the object and remember that object by integrating its predicted motion with perceptions of its implied acceleration and velocity (Didierjean & Marmèche, 2005; Finke, Freyd, & Shyi, 1986). This anticipatory trace is then stored in memory and can be accessed for subsequent recall and recognition …postprin

Increasing difficulty but not decreasing performance: maintained interception with increments in visual blur

Conference Theme: Meeting New Challenges and Bridging Cultural Gaps in Sport and Exercise PsychologyINTRODUCTION: In an earlier study on the relationship between visual blur and interceptive skill (Mann, Ho, De Souza, Watson, & Taylor, 2007) it was observed that interceptive performance can be maintained despite the introduction of significant refractive visual blur. Mann et al. found that contact lenses simulating legally-blind levels of short-sightedness were required (6/60 or 20/200 acuity) before any subjectively assessed decrease in skilled performance could be measured when intercepting balls pitched by a projection machine in the sport of cricket. Several of the participants reported a preference for taking part with low levels of visual blur as a means of focusing concentration and visual attention, raising the possibility that rather than decreasing performance, training with blurred vision may provide an opportunity to enhance skill acquisition. The aim of this study was to extend the protocol of Mann et …postprin