Anticipation in football: the effects of contextual information in advance and physical strain

The project aims to investigate football players' integration of contextual and visual information while anticipating opponents' actions under varying physical strain. The project's results are expected to be used to inform sports coaches and performance analysts about the benefits of providing contextual information in advance to their athletes ahead of upcoming competitions.

We will investigate football players' integration of contextual and visual information while anticipating opponents' actions under varying physical strain.

A laboratory-based experiment will be conducted, where the ability to predict an opponent's actions, underlying visual search strategies and perceived cognitive load will be measured in 20 skilled football players under low, moderate and high physical strain. These measurements will be made on two separate test occasions: one with explicit contextual prior information about the opponent's action tendencies and one without any contextual prior information.

The project's results are expected to be used to inform sports coaches and performance analysts about the benefits of providing contextual information in advance to their athletes ahead of upcoming competitions.