Audition – A Rugby match is full of shouting both on and off the pitch as with most team games, thus resulting in a weakening of stimuli like the call of a team mate. Squash however is limited to silence from spectators and so the only sounds that can be heard can be used as stimuli, so it is strengthened. Thai boxing would contain lots of shouting from out of the ring, thus weakening stimuli.
Proprioception
- Equilibrium – In amateur rugby, or perhaps some professional rugby, the pitch surface may be slightly uneven, or may contain ditches resulting in an imperfection of balance. Squash would tend to be a constant surface, and the same with Thai boxing, allowing efficient equilibrium.
- Kinaesthesis – this would apply to all three sports in terms of closed skills like passing, forehand return or kicking and would aid in sensory input as the performer would know if adjustments to a skill need to be made so it can be performed better.
- Tactile Sense - in rugby a performer can use this to judge grip on the ball according to weather, e.g. wet or muddy the ball may slip. In Racket the feel will tend to always be the same so would have little effect but it could be used if performer prefers loose/ tight grips for different skills. It plays a big role in a sport like Thai boxing when the performer is either applying pressure onto the opponent or receiving it via a punch/kick etc.
Short-term Sensory Store
All information taken through the senses is stored for a split second in the short-term sensory store before being processed, after which the information is lost and replaced. Between team, racket and individual sports there is no differences for this component, other than the fact that within a team game there will be more input than within a racket or individual, considering more team players, more opponents and larger crowds.
Perception
Perception is the stage where we identify the irrelevant and relevant inputs, known as selective attention. Again, as team sports have more input there would be greater time spent on judgment of what is relevant, thus slowing down the I.P. model creating less time for the motor output.
However, an expert at the sport being performed may recognise relevant information faster than a novice and therefore the I.P. model may not be slowed down.
Short-term Memory
The relevant information is then stored in the short-term memory for only 1 minute and has a capacity of just 7-10 pieces of information. For a team sport, with so many relevant inputs, that 7-10 pieces may not be enough to effectively judge how to react in a certain situation. However in a squash game, there is little input and most probably enough to store in the short-term memory. And with Thai boxing, a lot of the input is probably disregarded like shouts from outside the ring, and most of the relevant pieces of info would fit in the S.T.M.
Obviously there is a vast difference between the skill of a novice and an elite performer. An elite can still only store 7-10 pieces, yet the amount of relevant info he/she can store in each piece may be far greater than that of a novice. For example the position of a centre’s opposite number may be one piece for a novice, but for an elite, one piece may be the positions of the whole back line.
Long-term Memory
This is where previous experiences and movement patterns are stored. So an elite would be expected to have a broad range within their L.T.M. This will change according to which skills may be used in a game situation. For open skills, which vary from time to time, the decision making process will always take that much longer than a closed skill because the situation may be slightly different every time. This occurs for all three sports I’ve used so far. But for an individual sport like swimming, which is closed, the same situations would always be encountered so the process would be faster.
Decision Process
When S.T.M. is compared with L.T.M., obviously the more open a skill I the longer this transaction will take as detailed above. Hick’s law states that;
The time taken to respond increases proportionally to the number of possible responses.
Advanced PE for Edexcel
It describes two reaction categories; SRT (simple reaction time) and CRT (choice reaction time). SRT has a faster reaction time to CRT because it comprises of only 1 response, as opposed to CRT which may have several responses so the decision making process is slower. CRT coincides with open skills, applying most definitely to team sports.
Motor Output
This has a vast variety according to the sport and the different skills within them. The more complex the skill (or output), the longer it will take to complete due to more movement patterns so more information to be transferred. An individual sport like a 100m sprint requires a single set movement pattern that is just repeated until over the finish line so would take less time to complete. Whereas an open skilled sport like rugby requires all sorts of combinations of movement patterns so would take longer to initiate.
Other factors also affect the I.P. model. Time available; large amounts of time allow greater consideration of possibilities yet can think to deep and make incorrect decisions. Psychological state; a player at psychological peak will react and respond more quickly with greater accuracy. This can be arousal or motivation, as we all know poor motivation will lead to poor performance. Elite/novice; experience leads to bigger chunks of info.
Generally speaking, from analysing the variation of the I.P. model between team, racket and individual sports it can be seen that the more open skilled the sport is, the longer the I.P. model will take to produce an output, therefore reaction time is slower;
Response Time = Reaction Time + Movement Time.
In other words, team sports theoretically should take longer to perform outputs than racket sports, and racket sports longer than individual sports. This is also influenced by many other factors too, like experience, the difference between elites and amateurs, time available, psychological state and intensity of stimuli etc. To conclude, it would seem that I.P. within team sports would be slower than within racket sports; and racket sports slower than individual, which may explain why in team sports more errors occur i.e. the interception of a pass, a knock on and say a missed tackle.
Bibliography
Advanced PE for Edexcel