The influence of emotional state on perceptual anticipation of tennis players in Stalemate Stage

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Rong Shangguan ^*, Jilian Tang ^* and Yuanyuan Che ^*/**

^(*) College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Hunan, China
^(**) Changde City Special Education School, Hunan, China

Citation

Shangguan, R., Tang, J., Che, Y. (2022). The influence of emotional state on perceptual anticipation of tennis players in Stalemate Stage. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 53(3), 267-280. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2022.53.267

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of emotional state on perceptual anticipation of tennis players in stalemate stage. Fifty tennis players were recruited in this study, participants completed an experiment which complied by E-prime to measure their reaction times and prediction accuracy. The experiment included 180 batting tasks which were divided into four blocks, and a positive, neutral or negative emotion-inducing video would be played for about 4 minutes before each block. Results indicated that positive and neutral emotions produced better outcomes for reaction times (RTs) and prediction accu- racy compared to negative emotions. And negative emotions reduced the accuracy of straight line and oblique line predictions compared to neutral emotions. Ad- ditionally, there was a triple interaction in the RTs between emotional valence, skill group and batting task. In conclusion, emotional valence had a significant influence on tennis players’ perceptual anticipation. Therefore, tennis players should train harder, improve their technical and tactical skills, and consciously control their emotions during the competition, thereby improving perceptual an- ticipation ability and achieving excellent athletic performance in the competition

Keywords: Accuracy, Ball hitting route, Emotional valence, Perceptual anticipa- tion; Reaction times

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