Abstract
A large body of literature supports the effectiveness of video-simulation to improve on-court/on-field performance in interceptive tasks (e.g., hitting a baseball; Broadbent et al. 2015). However, its effectiveness for invasion tasks requiring the localization of teammates and opponents to select the optimal action has yet to be demonstrated. In addition, whether presenting the video-simulation in virtual-reality provides an added-value is unknown. To test these two questions, varsity-level basketball players underwent four training sessions during which they observed video clips of basketball plays presented either on a computer screen (CS group) or using a virtual-reality headset (VR group). A third group watched footage from NCAA playoff games on a computer screen (CTRL group). Decision-making skills were tested on-court before and after the four training sessions using two types of plays: "trained" plays (plays presented during the CS and VR training sessions) and "untrained" plays (plays presented only during the on-court tests). Our results revealed that both VR and CS simulations allowed participants to significantly improve their on-court decision-making skills compared to the CTRL group (mean improvement of 25.1%±6.64, 11.3%±3.59, and 0.9%±3.31, respectively). In addition, while VR and CS groups both significantly improved for the "trained" plays (23.5%±6.9 and 15.5%±5.5, respectively), only VR led to a performance increase of the "untrained" plays (28.3%±11.8 and 3.3%±6.7, respectively). Our results demonstrate that video-simulation is an effective technique to improve decision-making skills for invasion tasks and suggest that VR training stimulate processes that are, at least in part, distinct from those engaged in CS training.
