Anticipation – the underlying science of sport. Report on research in progress

Abstract

Professional sport practitioners intuitively acknowledge anticipation. Sports researchers sometimes discuss it. Still, there is little data-based evidence to characterize the role anticipation plays in human performance. Even less documented is the distinction between reaction and anticipation. This text presents the real-time quantification environment developed as an AnticipationScope™. Based on a very large data harvest from this experimental set-up, hypotheses regarding the role of anticipation in sport are advanced. The conclusion is that while preparation and reaction play an important role in sports performance, in the final analysis anticipation distinguishes the professional from other sport practitioners. Work in progress is presented with the aim of engaging the community of researchers in the design of alternative methods for quantifying anticipation and for processing the data. Generalization from sport to human performance is one of the intended outcomes of this research.

Keywords:

• anticipation
• holistic perspective
• perception
• reaction
• space of possibilities
• variability

Acknowledgments

Gratitude is herein expressed to Valery Liukin, who was himself one of the world’s great gymnasts, and to Dr James Denito of Allen, TX, who has worked with many of the USA’s leading gymnasts over the years, and who supported our experiments. The research team at the University of Texas at Dallas included Melinda Andrews, a PhD candidate at the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences; Jason Huang, an expert in motion capture in the ATEC Program; and Duk-Jin and Ziying Tang, Computer Science. Professor B. Prabhakaran (Computer Science) contributed valuable knowledge in the process of data acquisition and in the preliminary processing. The golf experiments were organized with help from a distinguished golf coach, Eben Dennis, and were coordinated by Robert Fuentes, a PhD candidate. Data regarding human performance was also acquired with the participation of the world-famous Germaine Acogny, “the mother of modern African dance,” and her ensemble from Senegal. Finally, Chris Bouguyon (Master Sifu) volunteered a full rendition of a Qi Gong set of exercises. The immense data accumulated with their participation is still in the process of being evaluated from the perspective of anticipation. Elizabeth Trosper assisted in the final editing of this paper.

AnticipationScope™ and Anticipatory Profile™ are trademarks belonging to Mihai Nadin.

Notes

1. RoboCup is a robotics competition founded in 1997. The aim is to promote robotics and AI research by offering a publicly appealing, but formidable challenge. The name RoboCup is a contraction of the competition's full name, “Robot Soccer World Cup.” By the mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.

Additional information

Funding

Research partially supported by the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Germany.