Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Perceptual-cognitive processes underlying creative expert performance in soccer

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Psychological Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Creativity is one of the key parts of expert performance in sport and other domains. The aim of this study was to determine the underlying perceptual and cognitive processes that underpin creative expert performance in the sport of soccer. Forty skilled adult soccer players participated. In the experimental task, they interacted with representative video-based 11 vs. 11 attacking situations whilst in possession of a ball. Clips were occluded at a key moment and participants were required to play the ball in response to each presented scenario as they would in a real-game situation. Moreover, they were required to name other additional actions they could execute for each situation. Their solutions on the task were measured using the three observation criteria for creativity of originality, flexibility, and fluency of decisions. Using these criteria, players were categorized into either high- or low-creative groups. Visual search and cognitive thought processes were recorded during the task using a portable eye-movement registration system and retrospective verbal reports. The creativity-based between-group differences in decision making were underpinned by differences in visual search strategy. Compared to the low-creative group, the high-creative players made more fixations of shorter duration in a different sequential order and to more task-relevant locations of the display, indicating a broader attentional focus. They also generated a greater number of verbal reports of thoughts related to the assessment of the current task situation and planning of future decisions when compared with the low-creative players. Our findings highlight the perceptual-cognitive processes that underlie creative expert performance in a sport-specific domain.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  • Eccles, D. W. (2012). Verbal reports of cognitive processes. In G. Tenenbaum, R. C. Eklund, & A. Kamata (Eds.), Measurement in sport and exercise psychology (pp. 103–117). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A. (2014). Creative genius: A view from the expert-performance approach. In D. K. Simonton (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 321–349). Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A. (2018). Capturing expert thought with protocol analysis: Concurrent verbalizations of thinking during experts’ performance on representative task. In K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt, & A. M. Williams (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (2nd ed., pp. 192–212). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A., & Kirk, E. (2001). Instructions for giving retrospective verbal reports. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data (Rev ed.). Cambridge, MA: Bradford books/MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, R. S., Fishbach, A., Förster, J., & Werth, L. (2003). Attentional priming effects on creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 15, 277–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furley, P., & Memmert, D. (2015). Creativity and working memory capacity in sports: Working memory capacity is not a limiting factor in creative decision making amongst skilled performers. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 115.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Furley, P., Memmert, D., & Heller, C. (2010). The dark side of visual awareness in sport: Inattentional blindness in a real-world basketball task. Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, 72, 1327–1337.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Getzels, J. W., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1976). The creative vision: A longitudinal study of problem finding in art. New York, NY: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gobet, F. (1998). Expert memory: A comparison of four theories. Cognition, 66, 115–152.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gridley, M. C. (2006). Preferred thinking styles of professional fine artists. Creativity Research Journal, 18, 247–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hass, R. W., & Weisberg, R. W. (2009). Career development in two seminal American songwriters: A test of the equal odds rule. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 183–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, J. R. (1989). Cognitive processes in creativity. In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of creativity: Perspectives on individual differences (pp. 135–145). Boston, MA: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hüttermann, S., Nerb, J., & Memmert, D. (2018). The role of regulatory focus and expectation on creative decision making. Human Movement Science, 62, 169–175.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, J. G., & Raab, M. (2003). Take The First: Option-generation and resulting choices. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91, 215–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., Glăveanu, V. P., & Baer, J. (2017). The Cambridge handbook of creativity across domains. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., & Sternberg, R. J. (2010). The Cambridge handbook of creativity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLaughlin, M. J., & Sainani, K. L. (2014). Bonferroni, Holm, and Hochberg corrections: Fun names, serious changes to p values. PM&R, 6, 544–546.

    Google Scholar 

  • McRobert, A. P., Ward, P., Eccles, D. W., & Williams, A. M. (2011). The effect of manipulating context-specific information on perceptual–cognitive processes during a simulated anticipation task. British Journal of Psychology, 102, 519–534.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McRobert, A. P., Williams, A. M., Ward, P., & Eccles, D. W. (2009). Tracing the process of expertise in a simulated anticipation task. Ergonomics, 52, 474–483.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Memmert, D. (2015). Development of tactical creativity in sports. In J. Baker & D. Farrow (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sport expertise (pp. 363–372). London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Memmert, D., Baker, J., & Bertsch, C. (2010). Play and practice in the development of sport-specific creativity in team ball sports. High Ability Studies, 21, 3–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Memmert, D., Hüttermann, S., & Orliczek, J. (2013). Decide like Lionel Messi! The impact of regulatory focus on divergent thinking in sports. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 2163–2167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Memmert, D., & Roca, A. (2019). Tactical creativity and decision making in sport. In A. M. Williams & R. C. Jackson (Eds.), Anticipation and decision making in sport (pp. 203–214). London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, C. P., Jackson, R. C., Cooke, K., Roca, A., Benguigui, N., & Williams, A. M. (2016). Contextual information and perceptual-cognitive expertise in a dynamic, temporally-constrained task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22, 455–470.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Panchuk, D., Klusemann, M. J., & Hadlow, S. M. (2018). Exploring the effectiveness of immersive video for training decision-making capability in elite, youth basketball players. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2315.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Roca, A., Ford, P. R., McRobert, A. P., & Williams, A. M. (2011). Identifying the processes underpinning anticipation and decision-making in a dynamic time-constrained task. Cognitive Processing, 12, 301–310.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roca, A., Ford, P. R., McRobert, A. P., & Williams, A. M. (2013). Perceptual-cognitive skills and their interaction as a function of task constraints in soccer. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35, 144–155.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roca, A., Ford, P. R., & Memmert, D. (2018). Creative decision making and visual search behavior in skilled soccer players. PLoS One, 13, e0199381.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Roca, A., Williams, A. M., & Ford, P. R. (2014). Capturing and testing perceptual-cognitive expertise: A comparison of stationary and movement response methods. Behavior Research Methods, 46, 173–177.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A. (1990). Creativity and scientific genius (Review of Simonton’s Scientific genius). Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 10, 201–206.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A. (2014). Creativity—Theories and themes: Research, development, and practice (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runswick, O. R., Roca, A., Williams, A. M., Bezodis, N. E., & North, J. S. (2018). The effects of anxiety and situation-specific context on perceptual-motor skill: A multi-level investigation. Psychological Research, 82, 708–719.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J., & Lubart, T. I. (1999). The concept of creativity: Prospects and paradigms. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 3–16). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, P., Ericsson, K. A., & Williams, A. M. (2013). Complex perceptual-cognitive expertise in a simulated task environment. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 7, 231–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, P., Williams, A. M., & Bennett, S. J. (2002). Visual search and biological motion perception in tennis. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 73, 107–112.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ward, P., Williams, A. M., & Ericsson, K. A. (2003). Underlying mechanisms of perceptual-cognitive expertise in soccer. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 25, S136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg, R. W. (2018). Expertise and structured imagination in creative thinking: Reconsideration of an old question. In K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt, & A. M. Williams (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (2nd ed., pp. 812–834). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, A. M., Fawver, B., & Hodges, N. J. (2017). Using the ‘expert performance approach’ as a framework for improving understanding of expert learning. Frontline Learning Research, 5, 64–79.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Expert Performance and Skill Acquisition Research Group, Faculty of Sport, Health and Applied Science, St Mary’s University, Waldegrave Road, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, London, TW1 4SX, UK

    André Roca

  2. Fulham Football Club, London, UK

    André Roca

  3. School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

    Paul R. Ford

  4. Institute of Exercise Training and Sport Informatics, German Sport University, Cologne, Germany

    Daniel Memmert

Authors
  1. André Roca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Paul R. Ford
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Daniel Memmert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

AR came up with the main idea for the project. AR, PRF, and DM implemented the idea into a feasible design. AR conducted the investigation, data collection, and formal analysis. AR wrote the original draft of the manuscript. AR, PRF, and DM revised the manuscript together. All authors gave final approval for publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to André Roca.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (PDF 111 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Roca, A., Ford, P.R. & Memmert, D. Perceptual-cognitive processes underlying creative expert performance in soccer. Psychological Research 85, 1146–1155 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01320-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01320-5

Search

Navigation