Define Reaction Time?
 Reaction time is the time taken from the onset of a stimulus to the onset of a response.
- Reaction time involves no movement. It is the fraction of a second it takes us to process the available selected stimuli.
- E.g, 100m - your reaction time would be the period from hearing the gun until you were just about to push against the blocks.
Define Movement Time?
Movement time is the time taken to complete the task.
- It is the time from the start to the completion of the action for the required task.
- E.g, In a 100m sprint, the movement time would be the time between pushing against the blocks and hitting the tape.
Define Response Time?
Response time is the time taken from the onset of a stimulus to the completion of a task.
- Response time = reaction time + movement time.
- E.g, in a 100m race, the response time would be the time between hearing the gun and hitting the tape.
What are the two types of reaction times?
A simple reaction time
A choice reaction time
Define a simple reaction time?
A simple reaction time is when there is one specific response to one stimulus.
- An example would be the swimmer or the athlete at the start of the race responding to the starter gun.
- This one choice should produce a fast reaction and response since the athlete only has one thing to think about before they react.
Define a choice reaction time?
Choosing from numerous stimuli is a choice reaction time and the response time is now much slower.
- A choice reaction time can also be made if the player has to choose a number of responses once the correct stimulus has been chosen.
- So in team games, for example, a key player with decisions to make such as a midfield player in hockey has to choose the correct stimulus from various indicators on the pitch and may also have to choose the correct response from various options.
- This process is much slower and indeed the number of choices is one of the factors that can affect response time.
Name the factors that influence response time?
Hicks Law
The Single-Channel Hypothesis
The Psychological Refractory Period
Anticipation
Define and explain Hicks law?
Hicks law is when reaction time increases as the number of choices increases.
- In sport, this law can be used to the players advantage since you can try to keep your opponent guessing.
- For example, when serving in tennis you can mix up your serves with direction or slice so that the opponent is never sure which one they are going to face. The variety will increase response preparation time and hopefully delay the actions of the opponent.
- However Hicks law is not always a straightforward linear relationship. Players can become familiar with their environment and in our tennis example, as the game gets into the later stages, the opponent may have got used to the type of serves being played and the response becomes slightly quicker.
Three concepts explain how timing and choice affect response time, what are they?
The Single-Channel Hypothesis
The Psychological Refractory Period
Anticipation
Define and explain the single-channel hypothesis?
This hypothesis states that stimuli can only be processed one at a time.
- Therefore a second stimulus must wait until the first has been processed before it can be processed (Think of a car queueing at a set of traffic lights to merge from two roads into one).
- The delay in processing a second stimulus increase his response time and goes someway to explaining Hicks law: the more choices, the slower the response.
How the timing of stimuli affects our reaction is explained by the psychological refractory period.
Define and explain the psychological refractory period?
The psychological refractory period is a delay when a second stimulus is presented before the first has been processed.
- This explains the delay that occurs because we can only process one stimulus at a time.
- The performer might ‘freeze’ completely for the split second it takes to sort out the conflicting information.
- For example, imagine you are playing tennis and the ball has been hit by your opponent to your forehand.  you are set for the volley but the ball hits the net and deflect to your backhand. You have to sort out the new and correct stimulus but first you have to disregard the old and now useless in stimulus and this causes a delay.
- In sport you can use PRP to your advantage - There are ways you can deceive your opponent to force a delay in the response for example, performing a fake or dummy pass in a team game by using fake body language to fool your opponent.
Define and explain anticipation?
Anticipation is pre-judging a stimulus.
- In other words, the performer tries to work out what is going to happen before it does, perhaps use information from the environment in the form of signals from the opponent or ‘cues’ which may include the body language and positioning of the opponent.
- In anticipation, there are two essential aspects of play that must be considered before stimuli can be judged. Temporal anticipation is prejudging when the stimuli is going to happen and spatial anticipation refers to where and what the projected stimuli are gonna to be.
- Correct anticipation improves response time. As the information processing process is speeded up, the information has been processed before the action has happened, so the movement aspect of the response can happen immediately. However, sports performers should be aware of the effect of the PRP. If the anticipation is incorrectly judged and the stimulus that is presented is not the one expected, then there will be a delay while the actual and second stimulus a process.
Define temporal anticipation?
When it is going to happen.
- Prejudging when the stimuli is going to happen.
Define spatial anticipation?
Where and what is going to happen.
- Refers to where and what the projected stimuli are going to be.
Name ways of improving response time?
- A player can use mental practice.
- During practice the performer could train to the specific stimulus expected in the game.
- The performer could learn to focus and concentrate during the game so that the stimulus is picked up early.
- Improving fitness improves reaction time; interval training and plyometrics might improve speed and power during the movement part of the response.
- If appropriate, the player might also try to use anticipation to predict the stimulus, especially if the player has done their homework on the opponent.
