“Fake production costs for the head fake in Basketball - influencing factors in individual settings and in social interaction scenarios"

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Iris Güldenpenning
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 286523897

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Deceptive actions in sport have not yet been systematically researched. As part of both project funding phases, we devoted ourselves to gaze deception in basketball. The first overarching goal was to investigate those factors that are relevant in the context of athletic performance (e.g. instructions, practice, frequency of gaze, expertise) and modulate the effect of head fakes. In head fakes, a basketball player passes the ball in one direction while orienting the head in the opposite direction. As the direction of the head interferes with the direction of the pass, reactions to passes with head fakes are slower and more error-prone than reactions to passes without head fakes. This pattern of results is referred to as the head-fake effect. The studies on the head-fake effect conducted as part of the project point to its robustness. Although the effect generally decreases or increases depending on the experimental manipulation, it never disappears completely. One recommendation for sports practice derived from the studies is to learn strategies to control attention. The person performing a head fake also experiences a conflict as s/he must generate two spatially incompatible movements: a passing movement in one direction and a head turn in the opposite direction. This is referred to as response-response incompatibility and is associated with costs (e.g. increased error rate and reaction times) during action planning. In the context of deceptive actions in sport, we refer to these costs as fake-production costs. The second overarching goal of the project was to establish a suitable paradigm for the investigation of fake production costs in basketball in individual and interaction scenarios. Further research was also conducted into those factors that are of practical relevance (e.g. practice with the task, effort instructions, expertise). The studies reveal that fake-production costs are modulated by practice and can even be overcome when movements are mentally prepared before performing them.

Publications

• How to Trick Your Opponent: A Review Article on Deceptive Actions in Interactive Sports. Frontiers in Psychology, 8.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Kunde, Wilfried & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Is the head-fake effect in basketball robust against practice? Analyses of trial-by-trial adaptations, frequency distributions, and mixture effects to evaluate effects of practice. Psychological Research, 84(3), 823-833.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Schütz, Christoph; Weigelt, Matthias & Kunde, Wilfried
  
• The impact of global and local context information on the processing of deceptive actions in game sports. German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research, 48(3), 366-375.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Alaboud, Mustafa Alhaj Ahmad; Kunde, Wilfried & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Electrify your Game! Anodal tDCS Increases the Resistance to Head Fakes in Basketball. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 4(1), 62-70.
  Friehs, Maximilian A.; Güldenpenning, Iris; Frings, Christian & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Processing head fakes in basketball: Are there ironic effects of instructions on the head-fake effect in basketball?. Human Movement Science, 67, 102499.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Weigelt, Matthias & Kunde, Wilfried
  
• Cognitive load reduces interference by head fakes in basketball. Acta Psychologica, 203, 103013.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Kunde, Wilfried & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Head-fake perception in basketball: the relative contributions of expertise, visual or motor training, and test repetition. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 20(1), 202-222.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Kunde, Wilfried & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Processing deceptive information in sports: Individual differences for responding to head fakes depends on the attentional capability of the observer. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 51, 101764.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Weigelt, Matthias; Memmert, Daniel & Klatt, Stefanie
  
• Action outcome probability influences the size of the head-fake effect in basketball. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 68, 102467.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Jackson, Robin C. & Weigelt, Matthias
  
• Practice reduces the costs of producing head fakes in basketball. Psychological Research, 88(2), 523-534.
  Böer, Nils Tobias; Weigelt, Matthias; Schütz, Christoph & Güldenpenning, Iris
  
• Producing deceptive actions in sports: The costs of generating head fakes in basketball. Human Movement Science, 87, 103045.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Weigelt, Matthias; Böer, Nils Tobias & Kunde, Wilfried
  
• Context-specific adaptation for head fakes in basketball: a study on player-specific fake-frequency schedules. Psychological Research, 88(5), 1702-1711.
  Güldenpenning, Iris; Böer, Nils T.; Kunde, Wilfried; Giesen, Carina G.; Rothermund, Klaus & Weigelt, Matthias