The naturalness bias in sport.

We examined the naturalness bias - the tendency to prefer people who seem to come by their talent naturally and not through work or effort - on ratings of athletic ability. Football (soccer) coaches, athletes, fans, and non-fans (n = 430) read about an athlete described as either being a natural or a striver. After watching a video of the athlete going through drills, participants rated the athlete on likelihood of success, athletic skill, mental strength, and physiological ability. Participants of all expertise levels tended to rate the athlete described as a natural as being higher in mental toughness than did the participants rating the athlete described as being a striver. There were no significant differences in ratings for the natural and the striver for measures of skill and explosiveness. It appears that the naturalness bias was most likely to influence ratings not easily judged by viewing a single performance.

Clarifying the effect of facial emotional expression on inattentional blindness.

Conscious perception often fails when an object appears unexpectedly and our attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). While various factors have been identified that modulate the likelihood of this failure of awareness, the semantic value of facial emotional expression of the unexpected stimulus is not clear. A total of 457 participants performed a static or a dynamic inattentional blindness paradigm with one of three face icons as the unexpected stimulus. Whereas we only found an effect of frowning faces semantic value on its conscious detection in the static paradigm, we found in both paradigms a substantial effect of frowning as well as happy faces semantic value on their conscious identification. Thus, we assume that the semantic value of unexpected stimuli, based on facial emotional expressions, controls attentional prioritization and influences inattentional blindness. Furthermore, we argue that every finding in inattentional blindness research should be considered in its respective context.

Does hunger promote the detection of foods? The effect of value on inattentional blindness.

Although human perception has evolved into a potent and efficient system, we still fall prey to astonishing failures of awareness as we miss an unexpected object in our direct view when our attention is engaged elsewhere (inattentional blindness). While specific types of value of the unexpected object have been identified to modulate the likelihood of this failure of awareness, it is not clear whether the effect of value on inattentional blindness can be generalized. We hypothesized that the combination of hunger and food-stimuli might increase a more general type of value so that food stimuli have a higher probability to be noticed by hungry participants than by satiated participants. In total, 240 participants were assigned towards a hungry (16 h of fasting) or satiated (no fasting) manipulation and performed afterward a static inattentional blindness task. However, we did not find any effect of value on inattentional blindness based on hunger and food stimuli. We speculate that different underlying mechanisms are involved for different types of value and that value manipulations need to be strong enough to ensure certain value strengths.

Clarifying the effect of facial emotional expression on inattentional blindness.

Conscious perception often fails when an object appears unexpectedly and our attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). While various factors have been identified as determinants of inattentional blindness, the influence of an unexpected object́s semantic value remains ambiguous. This is also true for the supposedly evolutionary meaning of faces; some studies found higher detection rates for faces while others did not or used control conditions that differed in physical aspects of the stimulus as well. In the proposed studies we aim to replicate and clarify the effect of the semantic value of faces on inattentional blindness in a controlled and systematic manner.

Dollars do not determine detection: Monetary value associated with unexpected objects does not affect the likelihood of inattentional blindness.

Conscious perception often fails when an object appears unexpectedly and our attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). Although various factors have been identified that modulate the likelihood of this failure of awareness, it is not clear whether the monetary reward value associated with an object can affect whether or not this object is detected under conditions of inattention. We hypothesised that unexpectedly appearing objects that contain a feature linked to high value, as established via reward learning in a previous task, would subsequently be detected more frequently than objects containing a feature linked to low value. A total of 537 participants first learned the association between a perceptual feature (colour) and subsequent reward values (high, low, or none reward). Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to a static (Experiment 1) or dynamic (Experiment 2) inattentional blindness task including an unexpected object associated with high, low, or none reward. However, no significant effect of the previously learned value on the subsequent likelihood of detection was observed. We speculate that artificial monetary value, which is known to affect attentional capture, is not strong enough to determine whether or not an object is consciously perceived.

Foul or No Foul? Effects of Permitted Fouls on the Defence Performance in Team Handball.

Attacking phases in team handball are highly dynamic, characterized by fast movements and a high frequency of fast passes with the aim to score a goal. Consequently, the opposing/defending team tries to prevent successful offensive actions by restraining the offensive opportunities and the probabilities of scoring a goal. According to the rules, defensive players are allowed to use body contact (e.g. with bent arms) to get in and keep their optimal defending position. If such a contact is not in line with the rules (e.g. clutching or pushing) and results in a turnover of ball possession, a foul is called and a free-throw awarded. However, there is a lack of research answering the question if a permitted foul (without personal sanction) is an effective way to increase the probability of defending the own goal successfully, because afterwards the attacking team keeps possession of the ball. Thus, we investigated 1052 attacking phases during games at the elite level to verify whether fouls committed by a defender influenced successful attacking (goal vs. no goal). It was found that when the attack was interrupted by a permitted foul, 50.60% of the attacks ended with a goal. Yet, when no foul was committed, only 47.09% of the attacks ended with a goal, however, the analysis revealed that this difference was not significant. Therefore, we concluded that neither a strategy of stopping offensive actions by body contact nor avoiding fouls and focusing only on intercepting the ball were favourable solutions in successful defending in team handball. It seems effective to implement a defence strategy with clearly defined fouling zones and situations, to deal with the tactical possibility of permitted fouls in handball. This idea and further considerations are discussed for sports practice.