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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Movement Science
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1356160
This article is part of the Research Topic Cognitive and Motor Skills in Sports View all 15 articles

Visual search strategies and game knowledge in junior Australian rules football players: testing potential in talent identification and development Article type: Original Research

Provisionally accepted
Kylie A. Steel Kylie A. Steel 1,2*Lael Kassem Lael Kassem 3Sera Dogramaci Sera Dogramaci 3Bonnie Pang Bonnie Pang 4John Quinn John Quinn 5Clare MacMahon Clare MacMahon 6
  • 1 Biomedical and Health Science, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
  • 2 The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia
  • 3 Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia
  • 4 University of Bath, Bath, England, United Kingdom
  • 5 Quinn Elite Sports, Sydney, Australia
  • 6 La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study explored video-based decision-making and eye-movement behaviour as a complementary method to assess the decision-making skills and knowledge of elite junior Australian Rules (AR) Football players. Performance was measured twice over an 18-month period. This approach tested a practical and reliable assessment of decision-making and game knowledge that does not contribute to physical training load. N=59 participants were categorised based on their training age groups, U14 (N=38, Mage13.37±0.47) and U16 (N=21, Mage14.80±0.39). Participants watched 14 brief video clips and provided action choices while wearing eye-movement recording glasses that captured visual search patterns (e.g., fixations).Decision accuracy and speed of decision-making were also recorded. Participants with accurate decisions made significantly faster decisions compared to less skilled players (p <0.001).Further, skilled participants had significantly fewer fixations of shorter duration compared to less skilled participants at both the initial and follow-up testing sessions p <0.0001). This suggests that eye-movement characteristics, remain a relatively stable measure over moderate periods of time. With the ability to differentiate between more and less skilled decision-makers, this proof-of-concept study proposes that examining eye movements in relation to decisionmaking and game knowledge is a viable tool for Talent Identification and Development (TID) to complement current measures. We provide a platform for further development and research in the quest for efficient and effective talent identification processes.

    Keywords: talent identification and development, Australian Rules football, eye-movement behaviour, decision-making, sport expertise

    Received: 15 Dec 2023; Accepted: 07 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Steel, Kassem, Dogramaci, Pang, Quinn and MacMahon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kylie A. Steel, Biomedical and Health Science, Western Sydney University, Penrith, 1797, NSW, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.