ABSTRACT
The ability of expert athletes to better anticipate the outcomes of action sequences is well established, though there is substantial controversy about how anticipatory skill should be measured. Progressive temporal occlusion is used to establish when in a movement sequence skilled athletes are able to pick up useful information. Spatial occlusion relies on the systematic occlusion of particular body segments or hitting implements to make inferences about the pickup of movement behavior from each of those segments. The point-light technique provides a very useful means of examining the specific role of kinematic movement patterns in the expert advantage for anticipatory skill. The traditional approach taken when measuring anticipatory skill has been for participants to view video-based displays of occluded movement patterns and to register their judgment by making either a verbal or pen-and-paper response. Video-based displays provide a very convenient and reliable means of presenting actions that are repeatable and can be occluded at.
