Complex Systems in Sport (Routledge Research in Sport and Exercise Science) by

Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781136482144
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

9

Single camera analyses in studying pattern-forming dynamics of player interactions in team sports

Ricardo Duarte, Orlando Fernandes, Hugo Folgado and Duarte Araújo

A network of patterned interactions between players characterizes performance in team ball sports. Thus, interpersonal coordination patterns are an important topic in the study of performance in such sports. A very useful method has been the study of inter-individual interactions captured by a single camera filming an extended performance area. The appropriate collection of positional data allows investigating the pattern forming dynamics emerging in different performance sub-phases of team ball sports. This chapter outlines: (i) a simple and flexible motion analysis procedure to capture the movement displacement trajectories of performers using a single camera; and (ii) exemplar data illustrating the analysis methods employed in the identification of pattern forming dynamics in a threeversus- three sub-phase of association football near the scoring areas.

This chapter focuses on the methodological procedures for capturing the relative positions of team players on the field using a single camera, as well as appropriate analysis methods to analyze the pattern-forming dynamics of player interactions. Team sport competitions can be characterized as complex systems in which players continuously interact to contest ball possession and positional advantage (Correia et al. 2012). This complex system regulates and is regulated by players’ individual and collective interactions, which destabilize or stabilize the system accordingly (Davids et al. 2005). The inspirational background to the study of pattern forming dynamics in team sports comes from coordination dynamics frameworks (Kelso 2009). The ecological dynamics approach adopted some of those concepts and tools to investigate emergent pattern-forming dynamics in decision making (Araújo et al. 2006), adaptive behaviour (Davids et al. 2006) and social movement coordination (Duarte et al. 2012a) at the individual environment scale in representative sports settings. An important concept in these approaches is the ‘order parameter’. Order parameters are collective variables synthesizing the complementary relations of cooperation and competition among the individual parts of a system, which may be used to capture and describe the self-organizing patterns emerging in a complex, dynamical system (Kelso 2009). Given its dynamical nature and sensitivity to environmental changes, when a system is displaced from equilibrium a phase transition in the ‘order parameter’ occurs, switching from one coordinated pattern to another (McGarry et al. 1999). Compound kinematic variables integrating relevant ecological constraints are commonly used as order parameters, such as the distance between the basket and attacking/defending players (Araújo et al. 2006) or angles formed between vectors linking players and an imaginary line parallel to the try line in rugby union (Passos et al. 2009). To identify the existence of an order parameter, changes in the state of a system must be identified as consequences of variations in the ‘control parameter’ (Kelso 2009). Control parameters are variables that ‘move’ a complex system (i.e. the order parameter) through different states, inducing nonlinear qualitative behavioural changes (Kelso 2009). They can help explain why the interactions of opposing players remain stable (despite the inherent variability) or, in contrast, why attackers gain spatial and temporal advantage over defenders, creating a phase transition in the system (Passos et al.

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