A preliminary study of the automatic processing of ball trajectory anticipation: evidence from ERPs

Basing their research subject on professional badminton players with an anticipation ability,the authors probed into the hypothesis of automation of ball trajectory anticipation by using a starting pattern and by basing the index on P300 in the event related potential triggered by the target item.During the experiment,first the testees watched a badminton video clip(initiation item),from which they can pick a valid clew to predict the ball landing spot;then a white square or triangle(target item) appeared on the screen randomly,the testees were asked to press the button as soon as they see the target item.The results revealed that when the target item appearing position and the badminton ball landing position predictable in the initiation item were inconsistent,the P300 produced by the testees was significantly higher than that produced when the two positions were consistent,which means that there is an initiation effect in the identification of the initiation item and the target item.The results suggested that the process of ball trajectory anticipation might be a process of automatic processing.