Abstract
The present study, using the reduction of onset asynchrony (SOA) in a multiple-choice decision task, was designed to investigate the minimal processing time necessary to analyse adequately a complex pattern according to the level of expertise of the subjects and to identify which processing stage is modified with practice. Four groups of 8 basketball players participated in this study. 12 series of six basketball situations were randomly presented in each of eight testing sessions by means of a tachistoscope. The presentation of the problem situation was followed by the presentation of a mask. SOAs were reduced from 500 msec, to 180 msec. Processing time significantly affected response accuracy. A significant interaction appeared between situations × level of expertise. Since at all onset asynchronies, there were significant differences between experts and non-experts, stimulus encoding as well as perceptual and short-term memory processes differ with the level of expertise.
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