Representational Momentum and Sport Performance

What the paper says

The potential role of representational momentum (i.e., a spatial bias in which the judged location of a moving object is displaced slightly forward in the direction of anticipated motion from the actual location of that object) in sport performance is considered. Previous studies of anticipation in sport performance focused on kinematics and contextual information, but findings regarding representational momentum suggest a third source of information, dynamics, also contributes to sport performance. Findings from studies of various sports in which representational momentum (or anticipation suggestive of representational momentum) has been examined (basketball, baseball, cricket, rugby, football [FIFA], ice hockey, motorsports, tennis, badminton, volleyball, taekwondo, dance, and chess) are summarized. Theoretical issues (effects of expertise, transfer of expertise, oculomotor behavior, judgments of coincident timing and time to contact, attentional momentum and inhibition of return, psychological momentum and behavioral momentum, common coding, predictive processing, use of dynamic information, and momentum as a contextual prior) are discussed. Potential directions for future research (how variables that influence representational momentum might influence subsequent anticipation, comparison of closed skills and open skills, effects of goals [intentions] on representational momentum, control of the stimulus, and other spatial biases that might combine with representational momentum) are suggested. Additional implications for theories of representational momentum and for understanding sport performance are noted.