Peripheral Visual Perception and Flag Football Experience in Quarterbacks and Their Associations with Decision-Making in a Computer-Based Read-and-React Task

Abstract

Introduction & Purpose

Quarterback (QB) performance in flag football requires rapid selection of relevant visual information and decision-making under pressure. Perceptual-cognitive expertise is associated with more accurate decisions and more efficient visual information use in sport (Mann et al., 2007; Vaeyens et al., 2007). Peripheral information may contribute to such decisions in dynamic game situations (Ryu et al., 2013). The Attention-Window Task (AWT) assesses the breadth and spatial distribution of attention independently of a particular sport. However, attention-window profiles may reflect sport-specific spatial demands: athletes from sports characterised by predominantly horizontal or vertical information demands demonstrate correspondingly wider attentional breadth (Hüttermann et al., 2014). This partly exploratory study combined the sport-unspecific AWT with a newly developed, computer-based Read-and-React (R&R) task to investigate associations between peripheral attentional performance, flag football experience and QB-specific decision accuracy.

Methods

A sample of twenty athletes (15 male, 5 female; age: M = 22.3, SD = 5.5 years) was included after data-quality exclusions from two Pro Day testing sessions organised by the American Football Association Austria (AFBÖ). Participants had 10.8 ± 5.3 years of flag football experience. In the R&R task, schematic flag football pass plays were presented as dynamic sequences, and participants selected the most appropriate receiver by key press. The AWT assessed overall, horizontal, vertical, and diagonal attentional breadth. Associations were analysed using Spearman rank correlations. Exploratory Mann–Whitney U tests compared athletes with the five highest and five lowest overall AWT scores.

Results

R&R decision accuracy was not significantly associated with overall AWT performance (ρ = .29, p = .218), horizontal (ρ = −.00, p = .986), vertical (ρ = .33, p = .153) or diagonal attentional breadth (ρ = .18, p = .447), nor with flag football experience (ρ = .33, p = .153). Exploratory analyses identified a significant positive association between flag football experience and vertical attentional breadth (ρ = .53, p = .015). Athletes with the five highest overall AWT scores showed descriptively higher R&R accuracy than those with the five lowest scores, although the large difference did not reach statistical significance (U = 22.00, p = .057, absolute rrb = .76).

Discussion

This study provides initial insights into relationships between QB-specific decision accuracy, peripheral attentional performance and flag football experience. Although attention-window performance was not significantly associated with Read-and-React decision accuracy, greater flag football experience was associated with greater vertical attentional breadth. In line with previous findings that attentional profiles may reflect the spatial demands of specific sports (Hüttermann et al., 2014), this result provides preliminary evidence that experience in flag football may be linked to the spatial distribution of peripheral attention. However, the observed relevance of the vertical dimension should be interpreted cautiously: the screen-based R&R task may emphasize vertically developing visual information differently from actual on-field play.

Conclusion

The small, performance-oriented sample limits generalisability, and transfer from a screen- based task to on-field decisions remains unclear, particularly where the display may emphasise vertically developing information. Overall, the findings provide an initial basis for further examining the relationship between the R&R task and peripheral awareness.

References

Hüttermann, S., Memmert, D., & Simons, D. J. (2014). The size and shape of the attentional “spotlight” varies with differences in sports expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(2), 147–157. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000012

Mann, D. T. Y., Williams, A. M., Ward, P., & Janelle, C. M. (2007). Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29(4), 457–478. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.29.4.457

Ryu, D., Abernethy, B., Mann, D. L., Poolton, J. M., & Gorman, A. D. (2013). The role of central and peripheral vision in expert decision making. Perception, 42(6), 591–607. https://doi.org/10.1068/p7487

Vaeyens, R., Lenoir, M., Williams, A. M., & Philippaerts, R. M. (2007). Mechanisms underpinning successful decision making in skilled youth soccer players: An analysis of visual search behaviors. Journal of Motor Behavior, 39(5), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.3200/JMBR.39.5.395-408