Coaches’ pointing gestures as means to convey tactical information in basketball: an eye-tracking study

ABSTRACT

The question of how information of play should be presented so that tactical memorisation is optimised is still under discussion. To explore how players’ visual attentional resources are allocated when learning from a game system in basketball, eye movements were registered in the absence and presence of coaches’ pointing gestures. Expert (N = 48) and novice (N = 48) participants watched a video in which the coach either (i) described the basketball game system without using pointing gestures or (ii) described the basketball game system while pointing to the relevant aspects of it. The results of analyses of variance showed that the coach’s pointing gestures improved novice players’ performance (they achieved better recall performances, invested less cognitive load and showed more efficient visual search). However, this effect disappeared in expert participants, indicating a partial expertise reversal effect. Findings suggest that the effectiveness of coach’s pointing gestures depends on levels of players’ expertise.

KEYWORDS:

• Gesture
• pointing
• expertise
• eye tracking
• memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.