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

For any perceptual system to perform properly, it must be able to provide the perceiver with the
information to do two things properly. It must tell the perceiver when they should attempt to
perform an action and, arguably more importantly, when they should not. For example, when a
hiker in the arctic encounters a crevasse, they must contemplate whether or not to jump. When
uncertainty exists, failing has dire consequences.
These action decisions are hypothesized to be determined by one's perceived affordances, defined
as actions that can be performed in a specific environment given the action capabilities of the
organism (Gibson, 1979). Consider seeing a coffee mug on a table. If that mug is reachable, then an
affordance for that mug is reaching. If our aforementioned crevasse can be scaled by our hiker, then
the crevasse affords jumping. A wealth of research has found that people are competent at
determining and updating their affordances for a variety of actions including stair climbing, aperture
passing, 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 consider
uncertainty in the dynamics of the environment. As a result, little is known about affordance
perception in sports-related environments, where complicated actions are performed in a
complex, constantly changing environment involving competitors. A ubiquitous, yet vital action in
most competitive sports is interception: the act of preventing an object from continuing its
trajectory, often in competition with an opponent. Success in team sports like football, American
football, basketball, field/ice hockey, netball, and rugby heavily relies on the ability to intercept the
target (ball) before an opposing player. However, to our knowledge, little/no research has been
conducted investigating how players' perceive affordances for interception in competitive
environments (Araujo et al., 2017). Determining how athletes make decisions for interception in
different scenarios could allow coaches a useful tool for instruction, leading to improved athletic
performance.