The Influence Of Prior Probability Information On Soccer Players' Action Anticipation Performance And Cognitive Processing Characteristics

The ability of action anticipation is one of the key factors determining the performance of athletes.Especially for fast ball games,such as in football penalty situations,goalkeepers need to predict where the ball is going to land before the kicker kicks the ball out,thus allowing enough time for the subsequent execution of blocking action.Numerous studies have shown that high-level athletes can use the limited body kinematics information(current information)of the opponent to complete an efficient action anticipation process.However,based on Bayesian theory and actual sports situations,high-level athletes tend to combine prior information(such as the pre-known probability information about the penalty taker's shooting direction) with current information to achieve more accurate anticipations when current information is incomplete.Till now,few studies have explored the relationship between prior information and anticipation performance,and its mechanism need to be further explored.Therefore,the purpose of this study is to explore the effect of prior probability information on the performance of action anticipation,and to investigate the cognitive processing characteristics by using event-related potential(ERP).Focusing on the main topic of "prior probability information affects action anticipation performance",Research 1 explored whether prior probability information could affect action anticipation performance of soccer players and the key time point of its influence through experiment 1 and experiment 2 respectively.Based on Research 1,Research 2 manipulated the consistency of prior probability information and current information and investigated the brain electrophysiological characteristics by using event-related potential technology in experiment 3 and 4.Finally,Research 3 analyzed the phase characteristics of prior probability information's effects in sport and non-sport contexts through experiments 5 and 6.That is,examining whether the expert advantage of the athletes occurs in the early stage of processing the priorinformation or in the later stage of integration of prior information and current information.The results showed that:(1)In experiment 1,when the amount of current information is minimum,the performance of the post-test was significantly higher than that of pre-test in the expert group under the conditions of both the intervention and the test have action preference.(2)In experiment 2,when the current information is medium or minimum,the prediction accuracy under the condition of action preference information was the highest in the expert group;for the controlls,the accuracy of action preference information condition was the highest under the three current information conditions.(3)In experiment 3,the N2 amplitude induced by the expert group was significantly higher under the condition of no prior information than that under the condition of non-preference information and preference information,while the control group showed no significant difference within the three conditions.(4)In experiment 4,the N2 amplitude induced by the expert group in mismatched conditions was significantly higher than that in neutral and matched conditions,while there was no significant difference of the N2 amplitude in the control group under the three conditions.(5)In experiment 5,there was no inter-group difference in the amplitude of CNV induced by prior information;In the process of integrating the two types of information,only the N1 and N2 amplitudes in the unmatched condition of the expert group were the highest,and there was no significant difference among the three conditions in the control group.(6)In experiment 6,the amplitude of CNV induced by the expert group was significantly higher than that of the control group;the amplitude of P3 induced by the expert group in matched conditions was significantly smaller than that of neutral and mismatched conditions.Conclusions:(1)Prior probability information can promote the soccer players' action anticipation performance;(2)Soccer players can flexibly adjust their attention resources and cognitive control level based on prior probability information to maintain better performance of action anticipation;(3)In terms of the time process of information processing,experts' advantages are mainly related to their better ability tointegrate prior probability information and current information,instead of the processing on prior information before the integration.(4)The prior information can not only promote the action anticipation in their sport expertise,but also increase the cognitive processing in the non-sport context in soccer players.