The Effect of Arousal on Decision Making and Eye Movements in Professional Volleyball Players

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D student, Department of Motor Behavior and Sport Psychology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Motor Behavior and Sport Psychology, University of Tehran

3 Department of Sports Health and Medicine, University of Tehran

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the present semi-experimental study was to investigate the effect of arousal by spectators on the process and outcome of decision making in volleyball serving.
Methods: A number of 15 players of the Iranian national youth volleyball team participated in this study. The test subjects first performed decision tests under arousal conditions without spectators present and then under arousal conditions with spectators present. The task of the current study was to carry out volleyball serving decisions under arousal conditions with spectators present. The task of the current study was decision making in volleyball serving under arousal conditions caused by spectators. The participants performed 25 decision situations in the initial situation and under arousal conditions caused by spectators. Visual saccade and fixation data were recorded by an eye-tracker system simultaneously with decision making.
Results: The result showed that spectator arousal influenced the process and outcome of decision making. Although the players' decision-making speed increased under the circumstances of arousal, their decision-making accuracy decreased.
Conclusions: The results show that during the arousal situation caused by the presence of spectators, the speed of players' decisions increases but the accuracy of their decisions decreases. In fact, during arousal, players shifted the relationship between speed and accuracy such that the speed of decisions increased and the accuracy of decisions decreased. On the other hand, the shortening of the duration of visual stabilization, which is a sign of the optimal performance of the visual system in extracting information, is also due to arousal conditions.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Sports Psychology
Volume 15, Issue 1
June 2023
Pages 63-74

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History

  • Receive Date: 27 November 2020
  • Revise Date: 07 February 2021
  • Accept Date: 04 March 2021

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