Coaching Edge Issue 5 25/8/06 11:09 Page 18

FEATURE

Developing
Anticipation
in Sport
The ability to anticipate opponents’
intentions is essential to elite-level
performance, particularly in rapidly
changing sports and team ball games.
Here Mark Williams and Jamie
North outline the skills underlying
effective anticipation and provide some
practical suggestions as to how these
skills may be developed.
At all levels of sport, athletes often have to perform under severe time pressure
so that decisions must be made in advance of the opponent initiating an action,
such as striking or kicking a ball.The return of serve in tennis and the penalty-
kick in soccer provide examples of situations where the ability to anticipate the
ball’s future destination is crucial. Scientific evidence demonstrates that elite
performers are better at anticipating than less-skilled athletes and that, at the
elite level, the ability to anticipate is more likely to discriminate successful and
less successful athletes than physical or physiological charactersistics.
What are the key skills underpinning effective
anticipation?
Before progressing, it is important to dismiss one potential myth.There is no
consistent scientific evidence to suggest that skilled athletes possess superior
levels of visual function when compared with their less-skilled counterparts.
Skilled individuals do not perform any better than less-skilled performers when
tested using standard optometric measures of, for example, depth perception,
peripheral visual field or visual acuity. Although the importance of visual
function may vary depending on the specific demands imposed by the sport,
there is no scientific evidence to suggest that these factors present the limiting
factor to high-level performance. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence to
support for the proposition that attempting to enhance levels of visual function,
through the so-called ‘eyerobic’-type training activities, popular in North
America, would result in any meaningful performance improvement.
In contrast, it is now well established that, when compared to their less-skilled
counterparts, skilled performers develop more refined and sophisticated
knowledge structures and memory processes that enable them to perceive and
interpret information in an efficient and effective manner.The skilled
performer’s perceptual-cognitive (rather than visual) advantage develops as a
result of specific adaptations that occur through extended engagement within
the sport. Although skill-based differences in anticipation can emerge at 8–9
years of age, these skills continue to develop as performers accumulate
additional practice hours within their sport.
A number of perceptual-cognitive skills are seamlessly integrated to determine
effective anticipation in sport. Some of these skills are briefly highlighted below.
Postural cue usage
Skilled performers are able to pick up advance information from an opponent’s
postural orientation prior to a key event, such as foot–ball or racket–ball
contact. For example, in soccer goalkeepers can pick up information from the
penalty-taker’s non-kicking foot, trunk and kicking leg in the moments preceding
foot–ball contact, whereas in tennis useful information may be gleaned from the
opponent’s shoulders, trunk and racket when attempting to anticipate an
intention to play cross-court or down-the-line.
Perceiving patterns of play
Scientists have shown that skilled players are better than their less-skilled
counterparts at recognising and recalling meaningful patterns of play in team
ball games, such as soccer, field hockey and netball. Skilled athletes are able to
identify the outcome of an attacking sequence by grouping together individual
player positions and movements into more meaningful patterns of play.The
positions and movements of one or two players can serve as a cue that allows
skilled performers to recognise the entire sequence.The relational information
between players conveys strategic information, which facilitates the ability to
anticipate the outcome of a particular pattern of play.
Visual search behaviours
The skilled performer’s superior ability to pick up postural information cues
and recognise patterns of play is due partly to effective visual search behaviours.
Skilled performers move their eyes around the display in a more effective and
efficient manner than less-skilled athletes; they fixate on more informative
display areas and are able to use the visual fovea and peripheral vision in an
integrated manner to facilitate the pick up of relevant perceptual information.
Skilled performers can also modify their search behaviour to meet the varying
demands of the task and are less affected by psychological and physiological
stress.
The skilled performers
perceptual−cognitive advantage
develops as a result of
specific adaptations which
occur through extended
engagement within the sport.
Situational probabilities
Skilled players also formulate more accurate a-priori expectations – often
referred to as situational probabilities – of what an opponent is likely to do in
any given situation. For example, in soccer when a full back receives the ball
from the goalkeeper the skilled player is able to accurately predict the likely
pass probabilities and assign likelihood ratios to each of these options. Similarly,
in squash, a skilled player is able to accurately predict the likely shot options

18 sports coach UK
Coaching Edge Issue 5 25/8/06 11:09 Page 19

FEATURE
Skilled athletes are able
to identify the outcome
of an attacking sequence
by grouping together
individual player
positions and movements
into more meaningful
patterns of play.
when an opponent is retreating towards the
backcourt region.These situational probabilities
can be generic to a range of opponents or
specific to a particular opponent. Moreover,
initial expectations may be confirmed or revised
as the action unfolds.
In summary, the ability to anticipate is largely
the product of more refined perceptual-
cognitive skills that develop through experience
and prolonged engagement in the sport. Skilled
players develop sport- and task-specific
knowledge structures and processes that enable
them to perform successfully in their area of
expertise. Although there is some evidence that
perceptual-cognitive skills may transfer across
sports, the general consensus is that these skills
have developed following extensive deliberate
practice within that domain and are
consequently even specific to the athletes
positional role(s) within that sport.
How can coaches help develop
anticipation?
Although an athlete’s ability to anticipate will
likely continue to improve through experience,
the perceptual-cognitive skills underpinning
effective anticipation can be enhanced through
training and instruction.The typical approach
has been to develop film-based simulations of the scenario in question, such as Further Reading
the return of serve in tennis or penalty-flick in field hockey.The opponent’s Smeeton, N.J.,Williams, A.M., Hodges, N.J. and Ward, P. (2005) ‘The relative
actions are filmed from the participant’s typical viewing perspective during effectiveness of explicit instruction, guided-discovery and discovery learning
competition and then presented to athletes using a computer screen.The techniques in enhancing perceptual skill in sport’, Journal of Experimental
performers’ speed and accuracy of response are reported as measures of Psychology: Applied, 11 (2): 98–110.
performance. Williams, A. M., and Ward, P. (2003) ‘Perceptual expertise: Development in sport’
In the training scenario, the athlete is typically presented with a range of in Starkes J. L. and Ericsson K. A. (eds), Expert performance in sports: Advances in
simulations coupled with instruction as to the important postural cues to focus research on sport expertise, (pp. 220–249). Illinois: Human Kinetics. ISBN:
attention upon and what this means as far as subsequent performance is 0736041524.
concerned. Such training protocols have been shown to significantly improve Williams, A. M.,Ward, P., and Chapman, C. (2003) ‘Training perceptual skill in
performers’ anticipation in a variety of sports such as tennis, field hockey and field hockey: Is there transfer from the laboratory to the field?’, Research
soccer. In a similar vein, film-based simulations have been used to enhance Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 74 (1): 98–103.
pattern recognition skills and a performer’s ability to use situational
probabilities with reasonable levels of success. An athlete’s knowledge of Williams, A. M.,Ward, P., and Smeeton, N. J. (2004) ‘Perceptual and cognitive
situational probabilities may be reinforced by a detailed analysis of forthcoming expertise in sport: Implications for skill acquisition and performance
opponents using objective match analysis procedures. enhancement’ in Williams, A. M. and Hodges N. J., (eds) Skill Acquisition in Sport:
Research, theory and practice (pp. 328–348). London: Routledge. ISBN:
The effectiveness of such interventions has been demonstrated in numerous 0415270758.
sports with children and adults of varying skill and experience levels.There is
some evidence to suggest that improvements observed using laboratory-based Williams, A. M.,Ward, P., Knowles, J. M., and Smeeton, N. J. (2002) ‘Perceptual
training protocols transfer to the field setting, which is the ultimate and most skill in a real-world task:Training, instruction, and transfer in tennis’, Journal of
important goal.The main advantage of these interventions is that they are Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8 (4): 259–270.
relatively easy to set-up, merely requiring a video camera, a basic editing
software package and some method of displaying the action footage. More
sophisticated training programmes can involve the use of virtual reality or Profile
physical simulators. Field-based training practices may also be developed using
simulated competitive scenarios coupled with appropriate instruction and Mark Williams is Professor of Motor Behaviour at the Research
feedback. Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores
University. He has published widely in the areas of expertise, skill
In conclusion, anticipation is crucial to high-level performance, particularly in acquisition and anticipation and decision-making skill and acted as a
fast dynamic sports and team ball games.The ability to anticipate improves as a consultant for several national governing bodies of sport.
result of sport-specific experience as athletes develop the specific perceptual-
cognitive skills underpinning performance. However, sport-specific training Jamie North is a Research Assistant at the Research Institute for Sport
programmes should be implemented to facilitate this process. Simple and cost- and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University. He is currently
effective training programmes may be developed using video simulation and completing his doctoral thesis in the area of perceptual-cognitive expertise
such training should be used routinely for performance enhancement in sport. in sport.

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