Judgement utility modulates the use of explicit contextual priors and visual information during anticipation

We examined the impact of judgement utility on the use of explicit contextual priors and visual information during action anticipation in soccer. We employed a repeated measures design, in which expert soccer players had to perform a video-based anticipation task under various conditions. The task required the players to predict the direction (left or right) of an oncoming opponent’s imminent actions. Performance and verbal reports of thoughts from players were compared across three conditions. In two of the conditions, contextual priors pertaining to the opponent’s action tendencies (dribble = 70%; pass = 30%) were explicitly provided. In one of these experimental conditions, players were told that an incorrect ‘right’ response would result in conceding a goal, which created imbalanced judgement utility (left = high utility; right = low utility). In the third control condition, no explicit contextual priors or additional instructions were provided. The explicit provision of contextual priors changed players’ processing priorities, biased their anticipatory judgements in accordance with the opponent’s action tendencies, and enhanced anticipation performance. These effects were suppressed under conditions in which the explicit contextual priors were accompanied by imbalanced judgement utility. Under these conditions, the players were more concerned about the consequences of their judgements and were more inclined to opt for the direction with the higher utility. It appears that judgement utility disrupts the integration of contextual priors and visual information, which results in decreased impact of explicit contextual priors during action anticipation.