Expertise and Deceptive Movements in Sport

Deception plays an important role in disrupting the anticipatory abilities of an opponent during time-constrained interactive motor tasks. Research interest in deception in sports has amplified in recent years, with particular interest in the underlying mechanisms for expert anticipation of deceptive actions. However, a new conceptual framework for the definition of deception in sport had to be established to clarify what deception is and how different approaches are used by actors to disrupt the anticipatory abilities of observers. Using this new conceptual framework, three studies were conducted to examine the influence of motor resonance of deceptive actions of expert performers on the action understanding of others. The first study investigated whether the ability to perform a deceptive action would be related to the ability to perceive the same action and vice versa. The results revealed that skilled performers better anticipate the action outcomes of highly deceptive actions and were more sensitive at discriminating deceptive from non-deceptive actions than that of less-skilled performers. Additionally, skilled performers produce actions that appear to be better disguised than those of the less-skilled performers. The second study investigated whether individuals were better able to anticipate the outcome of their own deceptive actions than others were. Results revealed that players were no better at anticipating the outcomes of their own actions than others were. Instead, the response behaviour of the individuals viewing their own actions was indistinguishable from that of others viewing the same actions. The third study investigated whether the perception of deceptive actions would be enhanced following physical motor training of the same deceptive actions, and whether the improvements following training would transfer into an in-situ scenario. The results revealed improvements for the training group in anticipatory performance and sensitivity at discriminating deceptive from non-deceptive actions, but the transfer effects to an in-situ scenario were not evident. This thesis has provided a new conceptual framework for the definition of deception in sport and empirical evidence that the motor resonance of deceptive actions of skilled performers can influence the action understanding of others. Furthermore, recommendations for enhancing the action understanding of deceptive actions are presented for practical implementation and future research.