Elsevier

Human Movement Science

Volume 40, April 2015, Pages 264-272
Human Movement Science

Angular relationships regulate coordination tendencies of performers in attacker–defender dyads in team sports

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2015.01.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examine continuous interactions of performers in dyadic systems in team sports.

  • Coordination tendencies of attacker–defender dyads constrained by angular relations.

  • Exploratory behaviors allowing performers to obtain information for goal-achievement.

Abstract

This study examined the continuous interpersonal interactions of performers in dyadic systems in team sports, as a function of changing information constraints. As a task vehicle, we investigated how attackers attained success in 1v1 sub-phases of basketball by exploring angular relations with immediate opponents and the basket. We hypothesized that angular relations would convey information for the attackers to dribble past defenders. Four basketball players performed as an attacker and defender in 1v1 sub-phases of basketball, in which the co-positioning and orientation of participants relative to the basket was manipulated. After video recording performance behaviors, we digitized participant movement displacement trajectories and categorized trials as successful or unsuccessful (from the attackers’ viewpoint). Results revealed that, to successfully dribble past a defender, attackers tended to explore the left hand side of the space by defenders by increasing their angular velocity and decreasing their angular variability, especially in the center of the court. Interpersonal interactions and goal-achievement in attacker–defender dyads appear to have been constrained by the angular relations sustained between participants relative to the scoring target. Results revealed the functionality of exploratory behaviors of participants attempting re-align spatial relations with an opponent in 1v1 sub-phases of team games.

Introduction

Research on collective social systems has shown that patterns of behaviors of individual members remain continuously co-dependent over space and time (Araújo et al., 2004, Davids et al., 2006, Schmidt and Richardson, 2008). For example, Schmidt and O’Brien (1997) used a visual wrist-pendulum task to investigate unintended interpersonal coordination in dyads. They found that, when visual information from one participant was available, particular coordination modes were more frequently observed than others, suggesting how the interpersonal interactions between individuals in a social collective were informationally coupled.

In team sport collectives, competing individuals continuously interact to achieve specific performance goals such as when a ball carrier strives to pass a ball to a teammate before a defender moves into position to intercept the ball (Travassos,Araújo, Davids, et al., 2012). An ecological dynamics approach is a viable theoretical framework which seeks to understand and explain how evolving constraints influence transitions in coordination tendencies between individuals in collective systems like team sports (underpinning actions and decision-making behaviors) (Araújo & Davids, 2009). According to this rationale, an individual’s performance behaviors are continuously dependent on use of specifying information within particular performance environments (Araújo, Davids, & Hristovski, 2006).

A major task for movement scientists is to seek to develop understanding of the effects of key information constraints on the continuous interpersonal interactions of individuals in such social systems (Vilar, Araújo, Davids, & Button, 2012). For example, research has begun to identify relevant informational constraints that support performance behaviors of attackers and defenders in 1v1 dyadic sub-phases of team games. In empirical work on 1v1 sub-phases, values of interpersonal distance in basketball (i.e., distance between an attacker and immediate defender) (Cordovil et al., 2009) and relative velocity in association football (i.e., velocity differential between attacker and defender movement displacements) (Duarte et al., 2010), have been shown to influence performance behaviors of attackers dribble past defenders and approach the scoring target. In fact, the relative positioning of performers to a scoring target has been identified in previous research as a critical feature for studying collective and dyadic system dynamics in team sports (Araújo et al., 2004, Travassos et al., 2012b). To exemplify, a recent study in basketball showed that interpersonal coordination tendencies (i.e., dynamics of the relationship between an attacker and defender) were shaped by manipulation of the relative position of attacker–defender dyads to the basket, suggesting that attackers preferred to move past the defender on the left (Esteves et al., 2012). In futsal (a five-versus-five indoor football game), it was reported that the angular relations between an attacker, defender and the goal constrained success in shooting at goal by the attacker (Vilar et al., 2012). Another investigation of 1v1 sub-phases of rugby union examined running angles of an attacker and a defender in relation to the try line (Passos et al., 2009). However, the method of computing the dependent variable in that study did not enable investigators to differentiate between a leftward or rightward move by the attacker to pass the defender (i.e., an attacker positioned to the left or right of the defender returned a value of 0°, meaning that the attacker–defender vector was parallel to the try line).

These studies highlighted the importance of team games players engaging in exploratory actions to create information for action (Whitagen, de Poel, Araújo, & Pepping, 2012). In ecological psychology, Gibson (1966) conceived a perceiver as an active individual seeking to detect invariant patterns in the surrounding ambient energy arrays, acting as information to regulate functional behaviors. The ongoing process of exploration throughout a specific perceptual motor performance workspace implies an actor searching for, and mapping, perceptual invariants to an action system (Kugler & Turvey, 1987). The investigation of qualitative changes in movement dynamics might lead to useful knowledge regarding the benefits of adaptive, exploratory behaviors in humans (Newell, 1991).

In the study of team sports performance, these exploratory behaviors have been exemplified in 1v1 dyads when an attacker attempts to manage interpersonal distance values and create a velocity differential to move past an immediate opponent (e.g., Duarte et al., 2010). Other work has shown how attackers seek to misalign their positioning with an immediate defender to shoot at a target (e.g., Vilar et al., 2012). However, no explanatory data exist on how attackers attempt to break the stability of their alignment with opponents to approach a scoring target and convert a shot, according to the positioning of the dyad relative to a scoring target.

In this study we sought to extend current knowledge on the exploratory behaviors of an attacker in a 1v1 dyadic system attempting to break stable alignments with an immediate opponent to create a scoring opportunity in the team sport of basketball. We attempted to achieve our aim by considering the co-positioning of the attacker and defender relative to the location of the basket, revealing their angular relations.

In line with previous findings, we hypothesized that, to successfully dribble past a defender, an attacker would tend to explore the left side of the dyad by generating a large angular velocity, as it would permit a rapid break in the stable alignment with an opponent, in order to approach the scoring target. Results from this study are expected to provide insights on how exploratory actions in sport are constrained by evolving information constraints emanating from continuous angular relationships between competing performers and a scoring target.

Section snippets

Methods

Four (N = 4) male, right-handed, intermediate level basketball players, aged 15 years, with an average of 10 years of basketball practice (SD = .82), participated in the experiment. For each participant parental written informed consent was obtained. We chose athletes at this developmental stage as participants to study because we did not want the lack of skill of complete novices to confound our data.

The experimental task consisted of a 1v1 sub-phase played on a basketball half-court. Each attacker

Results

Analysis of angular relations between attackers and defenders in dyads and the basket (ADB) revealed significant interaction effects between the success of the drive of the attackers and the relative position of the dyads to the basket, F(2.02, 96.86) = 19.39, p < .001, η2 = .29 (Fig. 3).

Data in Fig. 3 clearly reveals that there were larger values of ADB for successful trials in p6 (M = 87.76, SD = 58.39), and smaller values of ADB, for unsuccessful trials, in p3 (M = −33.53, SD = 23.78). A Bonferroni

Discussion

In this study, we sought to examine the functional exploratory behaviors of individuals in performing in the social collective systems of team sports, seeking to achieve specific performance goals. To achieve this aim, we investigated how attackers and defenders performed in 1v1 dyads in the team sport of basketball by manipulating their co-positioning and angular orientation on court relative to the location of the basket. In line with our hypotheses, and previous research, we noted that in

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    This work was partly supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia grant number BD/42312/2007 awarded to Pedro T. Esteves, and grant number PTDC/DES/119678/2010 awarded to Duarte Araújo as PI.

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