The development of perceptual-cognitive skills in youth volleyball players

ABSTRACT

In many sports, elite players outperform novices on tests for perceptual-cognitive skills, such as anticipation, decision-making and pattern recall. However, the developmental trajectory of these perceptual-cognitive skills has received limited attention. Therefore, this study examined the development of anticipation, decision-making and pattern recall in 202 female volleyball players aged between 7 and 26 years old. Participants were categorized into six age groups: U9, U11, U13, U15, U17 and Seniors. Using a video-based occlusion protocol, we assessed participants’ ability to predict pass direction, decide the most optimal attack zone, or recall the opponents’ defence positions. The results demonstrated that U17 and adult players had superior accuracy and shorter response times than younger players on all three tests. Notably, U9 players performed worse than older players on all tests. Binomial distributions showed that decision-making was above chance for U17 players and adults, whereas anticipation was above chance for almost all players. Our findings indicate that age-related improvements of perceptual-cognitive skills are evident at 11 years old. However, decision-making seems to develop considerably later than anticipation and pattern recall, suggesting different developmental trajectories for the different perceptual-cognitive skills. Longitudinal research regarding the development of perceptual-cognitive skills and their underlying mechanisms is warranted, as this could have important implications for talent detection and development.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceptual-cognitive function
• decision making
• pattern recall
• anticipation
• development
• team sports

Ethical Approval

This project was approved by the local ethics committee of the Ghent University Hospital.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

The authors whose names are listed above certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Notes

¹ Readers are referred to the work of North and colleagues for more detailed information on pattern recognition (North et al., 2016, 2011).

² All standard keyboards are subject to timing lag. According to Damian (2010) the average lag caused by keyboards in scientific experiments is around 30 ms, and Damian (2010) concluded that the variation in human performance is considerably larger than any variation due to response device imprecision. Software packages can also cause lag, and for OpenSesame, Bridges et al. (2020) showed that, for onset of visual stimuli and response times, timing lag in OpenSesame is minimal (3.85 ± 0.7 ms for visual onset and 8.27 ± 1.22 ms for response time measurement).