A Model of Information Use During Anticipation in Striking Sports (MIDASS)

In sports such as baseball, cricket or tennis, skilled performers can strike fast moving objects with extremely high levels of accuracy. The ability to anticipate the outcome of an event, prior to the act itself, is crucial to superior performance. Published reports have identified several sources of information that skilled performers use to develop probabilistic judgements related to what might happen next. The focus has been on identifying key sources of sensory information, notionally postural cues, that may guide anticipation. However, more recently, researchers have started to explore how the context that surrounds the situation may facilitate skilled anticipation. Scientists have empirically explored how these two sources of information are integrated, prioritised, and affect anticipation and deception. Thus far, few efforts have been made to enhance the conceptual backdrop for this work or, more specifically, to identify specific hypotheses relating to performance. In this paper, we synthesise current literature and propose a model to explain how various information sources may be integrated during skilled anticipation and how this affects performance, with a particular focus on striking sports. We articulate several testable hypotheses to help focus future research.