A psychophysical study of leg‐before‐wicket judgments in cricket

Certain decisions made by officials in sport are suited to study by the techniques of psychophysics. These techniques were applied to one aspect of the leg‐before‐wicket decision in cricket. Participants were presented with simulated stimuli depicting a ball travelling down a cricket pitch and being intercepted. In a three‐alternative forced‐choice task, participants were required to decide whether the ball would have (had it not been obstructed) struck the wicket or whether it would have missed to the left or to the right. The participants' responses were used to make estimates of their random and systematic errors when extrapolating the flight of the ball to the plane of the wicket. It was found that participants were unable to fully allow for variations in the point from which the ball was released by the bowler and for variations in the lateral acceleration (swing) of the ball. The random error of the participants' judgments of the ball's future position had a standard deviation of around 3 cm in the plane of the wicket. The significance of this value is discussed with reference to umpires' error rates, and with reference to the umpire's decision strategy given the accepted practice of giving batsmen the benefit of any doubt

Acoustics · Ball (mathematics) · Cognitive psychology · Cricket · Perception · Psychophysics · Swing · Two-alternative forced choice · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sport Psychology and Performance · Sports Analytics and Performance · Sports Dynamics and Biomechanics

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