6

Deception in sport
Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

Introduction
In the semi-final of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, England led New
­Zealand by four points with less than 30 seconds of the match remaining. The
New Zealand player, Shaun Johnson, received a high pass 15 metres from the
England try line, yet less than four seconds later he had executed consecutive
sidesteps to evade advancing defenders and level the scores. Moments later
he kicked the conversion to win the match. As well as illustrating the fine line
between winning and losing, this example demonstrates the value of deceptive
action in dynamic interactive situations. It is well reported that the ability to
anticipate the actions of an opponent confers a performance advantage in many
competitive sport situations (Mann, Williams, Ward, & Janelle, 2007; Müller &
Abernethy, 2012; Williams & Jackson, 2019). In this chapter, we contend that to
develop a full understanding of anticipation we must understand how performers
differentiate between genuine and deceptive actions. Accordingly, the focus of
the chapter is on deception research in sport, a growing body of work emerging
from the broader research base on anticipation.

Disguise and deception

In sports, deception is defined as the act of conveying a false intention in order
to mislead the observer about one’s true intention. Deceptive actions form a
subset of disguised actions, in which the goal is to conceal one’s true intention
(see Figure 6.1). For example, Rowe, Horswill, Kronvall-Parkinson, Poulter, and
McKenna (2009) instructed tennis players to disguise their intention suggesting
they should “make it ambiguous which direction you are to hit the ball or you
may try to wrong-foot your opponent” (p. 180). The aim of both approaches is
to disguise the player’s true intention; however, only attempts to wrong-foot an
100  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

Figure 6.1   he characteristics and optimal effects of disguise and deception. By

T
definition, the act of conveying a false intention disguises one’s true in-
tention, so deceptive actions form a subset of disguised actions.

opponent imply use of deception. Causer and Williams (2015) used an alternative
means of disguise in a study of football penalty kicks. Skilled players were found
to be less accurate in judging the direction of a kick when players wore uniforms
designed with a zigzag or circular pattern that made it more difficult to perceive
the kicker’s waistline and body orientation. The distinction between disguise
and deception is clear when considering response accuracy in a forced-choice
task. Entirely successful disguise (in the absence of deception) would reduce re-
sponse accuracy to chance level, whereas entirely successful deception would
result in every response being incorrect ( Jackson, Warren, & Abernethy, 2006).
Accordingly, there are two main lines of empirical evidence for deception. First,
response accuracy that falls significantly below chance constitutes clear evidence
of deception. Second, where deceptive actions can be clearly identified, evidence
of their effectiveness can be found by comparing response characteristics with
those for equivalent ‘genuine’ or non-deceptive actions.
Researchers have begun to address a number of fundamental and applied ques-
tions regarding the judgement of deceptive actions. We focus on these questions
in the sections that follow, beginning by considering how expertise influences re-
sponses to deceptive actions in dynamic, interactive duelling tasks. We address com-
mon questions emanating from research on anticipation, including the nature of
information to which performers are attuned and the role of motor and perceptual
expertise. We then review studies of ‘contextual deception’, focussing on factors that
either directly or indirectly manipulate the expectations of a performer, including
situational probability information, the perception of eye movements, and ‘head
fakes’. Finally, we review preliminary attempts to train performers to detect decep-
tive intent and make a number of recommendations for future research in the area.
 Deception in sport  101

Are experts better at recognising deceptive actions?

Duelling tasks – response accuracy

In a study of the martial art of savate, or French boxing, Ripoll, Kerlirzin, Stein,
and Reine (1995) tested the accuracy of expert, intermediate, and novice b­ oxers
when responding to attacks, openings, and feints. Participants watched six,
60-second video sequences, each showing a demonstrator simulating 10 ­attacks,
seven openings, and five feints. Their task was to respond by moving a joystick
to the left or right (to avoid an attack), forwards (for an opening), or not at all
(for feints). The analysis revealed that experts made more false alarm responses
to feints (47%), than did intermediates (30%) and novices (23%). This finding
might indicate that experts are more susceptible to deceptive actions or may be
revealing a perceptual or cognitive (strategic) bias towards responding to feints
given the serious consequences of failing to respond to a genuine attack. In ‘Go/
No-go’ judgements of handball penalty throws, for example, Cañal-Bruland
and Schmidt (2009) found that skilled goalkeepers were biased towards judging
penalty throws to be fake. In most studies of deception, researchers have used
tasks in which the consequences are equivalent across the response options, such
as judging whether a player will move to the left or right. In the first of these,
­Jackson et al. (2006) tested the ability of skilled and novice rugby players to judge
direction change when an approaching player either ‘cut’ to the left or right, or
executed a deceptive sidestep, feigning to move in one direction before mov-
ing in the opposite direction. Skilled players were more accurate than novices
when judging deceptive ‘sidesteps’, but not when judging non-deceptive actions,
suggesting that the ability to anticipate the actions of an opponent extended to
discriminating between genuine and deceptive actions.
The advantage skilled athletes have over their less-skilled counterparts when
judging deceptive actions has been replicated in several studies. Sebanz and
­Shiffrar (2009, Experiment 1) examined the ability of basketball players to dif-
ferentiate genuine and fake passes from video clips and static images of the final
frame before the player released the ball. In the first experiment both experts
and novices judged significantly above chance in both conditions. There was no
difference between groups in response accuracy when judging the static images;
however, experts outperformed novices when judging the video clips. In the sec-
ond experiment, Sebanz and Shiffrar (2009, Experiment 2) used dynamic point-
light stimuli of genuine and deceptive overhead and bounce passes, viewed from
the front or in half-profile. Novices performed at chance level in both profile
views, whereas experts judged significantly above chance and were most accurate
in the frontal view.
In comparisons between genuine and deceptive actions, researchers have used
the temporal occlusion (Figure 6.2) method to reveal that both high-skilled and
low-skilled performers tend to be less accurate when judging deceptive actions
than when judging non-deceptive actions (Dicks, Button, & Davids, 2010).
102  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

Figure 6.2   he football ‘step-over’ action, shown in full video and point-light for-
T
mat. The timeline shows progression of the action relative to the point at
which the player’s lead foot passes in front of or over the ball, and illus-
trates different points at which the video might be stopped in a temporal
occlusion study.

However, in most studies to date, high-skilled performers are still deceived; their
accuracy falling below chance level on one or more occlusion points, albeit re-
maining higher than that of less-skilled performers. Second, with the exception
of a study involving football penalty kicks (Smeeton & Williams, 2012), the dif-
ference between response accuracy for genuine and deceptive trials tends to be
smaller in high-skilled performers. For example, Brault, Bideau, Kulpa, and Craig
(2012) used an immersive virtual environment to examine judgements of direction
change in rugby players. The accuracy of novices and experts was significantly
below chance when judging deceptive actions occluded 200 ms before reorienta-
tion. Nonetheless, expert players remained more accurate than non-players when
judging deceptive actions. Researchers who have used the football step-over have
similarly reported little or no difference in response accuracy between high- and
low-skilled players when judging non-deceptive actions but a significant differ-
ence on trials containing deception (Bishop, Wright, Jackson, & Abernethy, 2013;
­Jackson, Barton, Ashford, & Abernethy, 2018; Wright & Jackson, 2014).
In analysing the time course of information pickup in responses to decep-
tive actions, most researchers have shown an earlier increase in response accu-
racy in more skilled players, indicating they are able to use such information
to recognise deception. Brault et al. (2012) found that the response accuracy of
expert rugby players improved from approximately 25% to over 80% in a time
window of just 100 ms. In the same time window, the response accuracy of
novice players improved from approximately 10% to just over 20% and remained
below chance level. Similarly, Mori and Shimada (2013; Experiments 2 and 3)
reported that the response accuracy of novice rugby players lagged behind skilled
players in judgements of single- and double-sidestep actions. These findings are
supported by a study that used a response-priming paradigm (Güldenpenning,
Steinke, Koester, & Schack, 2013). Güldenpenning and colleagues reported that
skilled volleyball players were faster at classifying the target following congruent
primes than incongruent primes when these depicted stills from 0 ms (same as
 Deception in sport  103

the target stimulus), 200 ms, or 400 ms prior to the target, and the effect at 600
ms approached significance. In contrast, novices only showed an effect of con-
gruence for images taken 0 ms and 200 ms before the target stimulus, suggesting
they were unable to use earlier information (see also Güldenpenning, Braun,
Machlitt, & Schack, 2015).

Duelling tasks – response time and timing

The temporal occlusion paradigm allows researchers to identify the progressive
change in accuracy as more of the action is revealed; however, responses are not
time-constrained, as they would be in a competitive encounter. Researchers have
therefore created tests in which response time is a key dependent variable. To
date, the evidence is somewhat mixed regarding response times to deceptive ac-
tions. Mori and Shimada (2013; Experiment 1) compared the responses of players
and non-players to unoccluded videos of rugby players changing direction either
without a sidestep, or with a single or double sidestep. No group differences in
response accuracy were reported across any of the conditions, which was above
90% in the no sidestep and single sidestep sequences. However, across all three
conditions response times relative to the point of reorientation were approxi-
mately 70 ms faster for players than non-players. Furthermore, the response times
of both groups were approximately 30 ms slower in the single sidestep condition
than in the no sidestep condition. This finding suggests that the ability of skilled
players to use earlier visual information to recognise deceptive actions translates
to faster responses when responding to the full action sequences.
In contrast, Brault et al. (2012) reported that expert rugby players initiated re-
sponses approximately 90 ms later than novices when responding to a virtual avatar
performing (single) sidesteps. The difference between the two studies might be due
to the nature of the test formats (video vs. virtual reality) differentially affecting
expert and novice players. Alternatively, differences between the skill level of play-
ers in each study may have affected responses; Brault et al. (2012) tested top-level
players with international experience, whereas Mori and Shimada (2013) compared
collegiate players to non-players. Finally, inclusion of a double sidestep condition in
the Mori and Shimada study meant that identifying an initial change of direction
conveyed less information than in the study by Brault et al. (2012).
Additional analysis of the players’ responses to the virtual avatar revealed that
novices were more likely to respond to the initial fake, moving more than 5 cm in
the wrong direction on 42% of deceptive trials compared with only 14% of trials for
experts (Brault et al., 2012). Moreover, when they did so, the amplitude of lateral
displacement was greater for novices than experts. In terms coupling the attacker’s
actions and defensive player’s responses, this resulted in novice defenders being
further from the attacker at the end of the sequence. This finding highlights the
practical significance of suppressing an early response when there is the possibility
that the action is deceptive; experts remain in a better position to respond effec-
tively when the true intention of their opponent becomes clear. Further evidence
104  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

for the importance of suppressing responses was reported in a study that compared
the ability of skilled kickers, goalkeepers, and novices to judge the direction of
football penalty kicks (Tomeo, Cesari, Aglioti, & Urgesi, 2013). Deceptive kicks
were created by interchanging actions for kicks to one direction with actions from
kicks to the opposite direction just before the kicker’s foot made contact with the
ball. Judgement accuracy was then assessed for clips occluded 67 ms before ball
contact, at contact, or 67 ms after contact. Using transcranial magnetic stimu-
lation, the researchers found that motor facilitation for the interchanged (incon-
gruent) actions was lower in goalkeepers than in novices (for a critique of this
approach, see Mann, Dicks, Cañal-Bruland, & van der Kamp, 2013).
From the perspective of ecological psychology, timing of responses is central
to the concept of affordances, or opportunities for action (Gibson, 1979) and this
may be particularly important when considering individual differences in judg-
ing deceptive actions. Dicks, Davids, and Button (2010) illustrated this concept
in a study of seven experienced football goalkeepers who responded to deceptive
and non-deceptive penalty kicks. For the deceptive kicks, penalty takers were
instructed to look away from where they intended to kick the ball, change their
angle of approach, and produce a kicking action as though intending to shoot to
one side before kicking to the other side of the goal. When facing the deceptive
kicks, only three of the seven goalkeepers were able to save more than one kick
(out of 10) and these players also made the highest number of total saves. Analysis
of individual response capabilities revealed that these goalkeepers had the fastest
baseline movement times for diving to different parts of the goal. This advantage
enabled them to initiate dives slightly later, which, in turn, enabled them to ben-
efit from later-occurring visual information. As deceptive movements logically
precede those conveying one’s true intentions, this strategy might have enabled
these goalkeepers to ignore early deceptive actions more effectively.

Auditory deception
Almost all of the studies to date have focussed on visual information; however,
there is evidence that performers are attuned to auditory information that dif-
ferentiates genuine from deceptive actions. Camponogara, Rodger, Craig, and
Cesari (2017) conducted two experiments in which basketball players and nov-
ices judged which direction an attacking player would take the ball from ste-
reo audio recordings. The trials included recordings from both non-deceptive
and deceptive actions and analysis focussed on differences in the timing and
peak intensity of the sound of each bounce in the left and right sound channels.
When participants made a full-body response, as if to intercept the attacker, both
­basketball players and non-players made very few judgement errors (4%) on non-­
deceptive trials. For deceptive actions, non-players made initial movement errors
on 68% of trials, whereas players were fooled on 38% of trials. This finding was
accompanied by differences in movement initiation times, with basketball players
responding faster to non-deceptive actions than deceptive actions. The authors
 Deception in sport  105

interpreted their results as supporting the ‘supramodal theory’ of the brain, in

which it is unconstrained by the sensory modality in which relevant information
is contained. Other researchers have found that experts are able to classify actions
above chance level from sound alone (Allerdissen, Güldepenning, Schack,  &
Bläsing, 2017) and that sound may be particularly important for judging the
power of a shot (Sors et al., 2017).
In keeping with Sors et al., Cañal-Bruland, Müller, Lach, and Spence (2018)
recently showed that the louder the sound of the contact between the racket
and ball in tennis, the longer experienced tennis players estimated the ball’s tra-
jectory to be. Notably, participants were not aware that the sound had been
manipulated and hence the sound had implicitly biased their judgements. The
authors reasoned that one practical implication of this finding might be that play-
ers could ask manufacturers to produce rackets that deliberately produce sounds
with variable loudness to their own (‘invisible’) advantage. Another way to dis-
guise one’s shot direction is the use of ‘grunting’ in tennis. When ‘grunts’ mask
­racquet-ball-contact sounds, the accuracy of tennis shot direction in tennis has
been shown to decrease (Sinnett & Kingstone, 2010). More research is necessary
to unravel the degree to which sound may be used to convey a false intention or
simply disguise intentions.

What is the nature of information that differentiates genuine

and deceptive actions?
In order to determine how to improve perception of deceptive intent, we need
to understand the nature of the information that differentiates genuine and
deceptive actions (i.e. the information that is available to players). Second, we
need to understand the way in which high- and less-skilled performers use this
information. In this regard, the extent to which players use local and global
sources of visual information has been the subject of some debate in research
on non-deceptive actions (e.g. see Huys et al., 2009). Several researchers have
shown that skilled performers are sensitive to multiple sources of information
distributed across the player (Diaz, Fajen, & Phillips, 2012); however, others have
shown that removing a single source can significantly impair anticipation, par-
ticularly in striking sports. In deceptive actions, Smeeton and Williams (2012)
analysed the kinematics of football penalty kicks at four points up to ball contact
and found significant differences between non-deceptive and deceptive kicks
across multiple markers spanning both the upper and lower body and all points
of occlusion. Iwatsuki, Takahashi, and Van Raalte (2016) reported similar results
when they compared tennis backhand drop shots struck either without disguise
or when giving the appearance of preparing a backhand slice shot. Kinematic
analysis revealed that the centre of mass (COM) moved forwards more, horizon-
tal shoulder rotation and twist angle was greater, and the racket face was higher
in the deceptive than non-disguised drop shots. In similar work, Lopes, Jacobs,
Travieso, and Araújo (2014) found that linear combinations of several variables
106  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

were stronger  predictors of penalty kick direction than the local variables. A
particularly noteworthy finding was that the variables that differed most between
the genuine and deceptive kicks (approach angle, shoulder angle, and head angle)
became stronger and more reliable predictors of kick direction when expressed
as a compound variable. By implication, efforts to convey a false intention may
be most effective when opponents attend to specific cues in isolation rather than
multiple cues in a more holistic manner.
An excellent example of analysing the kinematics of deceptive actions while
also addressing how this relates to performer responses is the series of studies by
Brault, Bideau, Craig, and Kulpa (2010). Brault and colleagues used kinematic
analysis to identify differences between sidesteps and non-deceptive changes in
direction, and to determine the characteristics of more effective and less effec-
tive sidesteps. Their analysis focussed on head yaw, lower and upper trunk roll,
medio-lateral displacement of the outer foot, and COM displacement from the
first point of reorientation to the second point of reorientation (in deceptive ac-
tions). They reported that, relative to non-deceptive actions, sidesteps contained
exaggerated head yaw, upper trunk yaw, upper trunk roll, and outer foot dis-
placement, and reduced COM displacement and lower trunk yaw. More effective
sidesteps were characterised by greater COM displacement and less pronounced
outer foot displacement. In a follow-up study, Brault et al. (2012) used logistic
regression analyses to determine how sensitive players are to the different sources
of information. The experts were more attuned to the ‘honest’ COM displace-
ment signal, whereas non-players were more attuned to deceptive signals. More
specifically, each group’s responses were predicted by the tau of each of these
variables, reflecting the magnitude of displacement and rate of closure relative to
the point of reorientation. Calculating COM requires knowledge of the position
of the whole body, so these results provide tentative evidence that the advantage
held by high- over less-skilled players may lie in their greater sensitivity to global
information.
In an effort to gain further insight into the information used by performers,
researchers have used eye-tracking equipment to monitor visual gaze as they re-
spond to video stimuli. Mori and Shimada (2013) compared visual gaze in rugby
players and novices as they judged direction change from time-occluded video
clips. Skilled rugby players spent a much greater proportion of time viewing the
approaching player’s chest area, whereas novices spent much more time viewing
the player’s hips and legs. Although caution is needed when making inferences
about visual attention from point of gaze, the differences were clear and suggest
a potential difference in the sources used by each group.

Does motor expertise contribute to judgements

of deceptive intent?
It is clear that, with experience, athletes learn to discriminate between de-
ceptive and non-deceptive intentions. Expertise effects in judging deceptive
 Deception in sport  107

intent in sport have proved robust across a number of different tasks, and it is
clear that this ability is based, at least in part, on the ability to ‘read’ dynamic
body cues. However, it is unclear whether it is caused solely by visual exper-
tise gained through seeing and responding to deceptive actions or whether
expertise in performing these actions is a contributing factor. This question is
particularly relevant to the common coding theory, which posits that percep-
tion and action share common representations (Prinz, 1997). At the neuroan-
atomical level, it has been reported that ‘mirror neurons’ in the brain respond
to the observation and production of the same action (Di Pellegrino, Fadiga,
Fogassi, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992; Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese, & Fogassi,
1996). The common coding theory predicts that the degree of overlap between
perceptual and motor representations will determine the extent to which per-
ception may be enhanced by motor expertise. It follows that humans should be
perceptually more attuned to actions that match their own motor experience
and skills (Cañal-Bruland, van der Kamp, & van Kesteren, 2010; Wöllner &
Cañal-Bruland, 2010).
Neuropsychological evidence for the contribution of motor expertise in
judgements of deceptive actions comes from studies that have used f MRI to as-
sess activity in different regions of the brain as participants perform judgement
tasks. Bishop et al. (2013) compared the activity of low-, ­intermediate-, and
high-skilled anticipators as they judged video clips of football players ­m aking
non-deceptive and deceptive (step-over) changes in direction. The analysis
revealed greater activation of the mirror neuron system in high-skilled partic-
ipants, with this effect being more pronounced on trials that contained decep-
tive action. Sebanz and Shiffrar (2009) suggested that the mechanisms involved
in predicting their own actions might have helped expert basketball players
infer intentions in the players they observed. This reflected conclusions drawn
from studies of non-deceptive actions. Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, and Urgesi
(2008) found that expert basketball players were more successful at judging the
success of shots compared to coaches or journalists with similar visual expe-
rience. Furthermore, they found a highly specific difference such that motor
activation of expert players’ hand at the point of release was greater for ‘out’
than ‘in’ shots.
To determine the contributions of perceptual and motor expertise to judge-
ments of deceptive intent, Cañal-Bruland and Schmidt (2009) compared the
ability of skilled goalkeepers, skilled outfield players, and novice players to differ-
entiate genuine (ball released) and fake (ball retained) handball penalty throws.
They found that skilled goalkeepers and outfield players did not differ, with
both groups being better than novices at discriminating between genuine and
deceptive throws. Cañal-Bruland and Schmidt (2009) noted that the advantage
of goalkeepers and outfield players over novices could not be attributed solely to
motor expertise. Nonetheless, the fact that outfield players performed as well as
goalkeepers is noteworthy and consistent with motor expertise facilitating per-
formance on the task (see also Cañal-Bruland et al., 2010).
108  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

Are performers susceptible to contextual deception?

Thus far, we have focussed on the deceptive qualities of dynamic information; how-
ever, the context in which an action is performed can have a strong influence on how
it is perceived. In studies of anticipation, researchers have shown that skilled per-
formers are more sensitive to contextual information deduced from shot sequences,
player position, and situational probabilities (Abernethy, Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001;
Farrow & Reid, 2012; Murphy et al., 2016; ­Murphy, ­Jackson, ­­& ­Williams, 2018;
for reviews, see Cañal-Bruland & Mann, 2015; ­Loffing & Cañal-Bruland, 2017).
A logical extension of these findings is that context can be exploited to convey a
false intention. For example, in their study of football penalty kicks Dicks et al.
(2010) manipulated gaze direction and the starting position of the player (angle of
approach) as well as dynamic information (kicking action) to create deceptive kicks.
The results may therefore be attributed, at least in part, to the sensitivity of goal-
keepers to contextual cues preceding the kick.

Situational probabilities
Barton, Jackson, and Bishop (2013) manipulated the situational probability infor-
mation available to football players as they judged which way a player would dribble
the ball. Before each trial, the probability of the player taking the ball to the left/
right (expressed as a percentage) was shown on the screen as 50-50, 67-33, or 83-17.
The researchers reported that the ‘cost’ to response accuracy when action outcome
was incongruent with expectations was greater than the ‘benefit’ when it was con-
gruent with expectations. This difference became greater as the probability values
became more extreme, and was greater on deceptive than non-deceptive trials.
Navia, van der Kamp, and Ruiz (2013) gave goalkeepers situational probability
information before facing four blocks of 12 penalty kicks taken by two skilled foot-
ball players. In non-probability and equal-probability conditions, there was a 50-50
chance of the kick being directed to the left or right side of the goalkeeper. In the
high probability condition, goalkeepers were informed that there was either an 80-
20 or a 20-80 chance of the ball being directed to the left and right. The researchers
found that the goalkeepers made fewer saves (16%) and dives to the correct side
(31%) when kicks were directed to the low-probability side than when they were
directed to the high-probability side (24% saves; 72% correct direction). These
studies indicate that performers might be able to exploit the situational knowledge
of their opponent by acting in a manner that is incongruent with their expectations.
Other researchers have shown that contextual deception can occur by indi-
rectly manipulating expectations through a sequence of action outcomes, and that
skilled performers may be particularly susceptible to this effect. The immediacy of
this effect was neatly demonstrated in a study of baseball pitch sequences in which
experienced batters responded to simulated pitches (Gray, 2002). Analysis of the
swing kinematics revealed that the timing error for a fast pitch was significantly
greater when it followed three slow pitches than when it followed three fast pitches.
The difference reflected a two-state Markovian model predicting the expectations
 Deception in sport  109

of  the  batter in the two conditions. The model also proved successful in predicting
timing error for pitch counts associated with different batter expectations. For ex-
ample, timing error was lower when the batter was ahead in the count. The acute
effect of incongruent expectations was also shown by Loffing, Stern, and Hagemann
(2015), who presented blocks of six volleyball attack sequences to skilled players
and novices, each of which ended with a smash or lob shot occluded 360 ms before
hand-ball contact. The target trial was the fifth trial in each block, which was either
congruent or incongruent with the sequence established in the four preceding shots.
For each block, the first four shots were comprised of four lob shots, four smashes, or
alternating lob and smash shots. The analysis revealed a clear effect of congruence in
the skilled players but not in novices. Specifically, response accuracy was lower and
response time slower when the fifth shot was incongruent with the preceding se-
quence. Response accuracy on incongruent trials was lower than what was achieved
in the first trial of each block.
In terms of the process underlying contextual deception, there is evidence that
prior expectations prime a congruent response, resulting in slower or less accurate
responses when an action is unexpected. Radlo, Janelle, Barba, and Frehlich (2001)
compared intermediate and advanced baseball players’ responses to a series of 400
pitches, each of which was preceded by a valid pre-cue, an invalid pre-cue, or no
pre-cue. In keeping with Posner’s (1980) spatial cueing paradigm, response accu-
racy was lower when the pre-cue was invalid (81%) than when it was valid (94%)
or no cue was presented (92%). Response time following a valid pre-cue was also
faster than for an invalid cue. Wright and Jackson (2014) showed that dynamic full
video or point-light stimuli could also prime responses to static stimuli. Participants
observed brief video clips of football players changing direction to the left or right
then responded to a target stimulus that appeared on the left or right side of the
screen. Participants responded more quickly when the stimulus location was con-
gruent with the direction the player went. This effect was reversed when the player
feigned moving one way (using a step-over) before going in the opposite direc-
tion. In non-deceptive moves, the congruence effect increased with later-occluded
video clips, while the reverse effect decreased as the deceptive actions unfolded.

Head fakes and gaze direction

During many actions, a powerful source of contextual information is the direction
in which a performer looks, which, as magicians can attest, serves as a powerful cue
to (mis)direct the attention of an observer (Kuhn & Findlay, 2010). For example,
basketball players commonly look in one direction while passing in another. In
a series of experiments, Kunde, Skirde, and Weigelt (2011) sought to determine
the ­effectiveness of these ‘head fakes’ and the way in which they were processed.
In their first experiment, they found that participants made faster judgements (by
approximately 22 ms) and fewer incorrect responses when the player’s head orien-
tation was congruent with the direction of the pass, even though participants were
instructed to ignore this feature. The power of the head fake was illustrated by the
finding that the congruence effect increased with longer response times, and did not
110  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

decline when the previous trial contained an incongruent head orientation. Kunde
et al. (2011) used a number of manipulations to target different stages of information
processing, including changing the orientation of the response keys, reducing the
luminance and contrast of the image, and manipulating stimulus-response congru-
ence. They concluded that the origin of the congruence effect resided in the per-
ceptual encoding stage of processing rather than response selection. As the authors
acknowledged, these experiments used static images so one must be cautious in
making inferences about dynamic stimuli; however, they illustrate how techniques
from cognitive psychology can be applied to unpick the nature of information pro-
cessing during task performance (see Güldenpenning, Kunde, & Weigelt, 2017).

Training to enhance detection of deception

As our understanding of how performers detect deception improves, a logical
step is to consider the implications for training. Research on this aspect is in its
infancy; however, the large difference between high- and less-skilled performers
when judging deceptive actions suggests there is significant scope for enhancing
performance. To date, only two studies have been conducted on dynamic inter-
active tasks and these focussed on perception of deceptive actions and situational
probability information, respectively. Alsharji and Wade (2016) found significant
benefits of a training intervention designed to help skilled handball goalkeepers
judge deceptive and non-deceptive penalty throws. For non-­deceptive throws,
the player threw directly to one of the four corners of the goal. For deceptive
throws, the player first made a fake throw in which they rapidly moved their
throwing arm forwards and backwards before making their actual shot. The
training intervention was comprised of seven sessions conducted over one week.
In each session, participants twice watched a 20-minute training film of 56 video
clips, each of which was shown three times. First, the whole thrower was seen
and the clip was occluded the frame before the ball was released. Second, just the
upper body of the thrower was visible and the action was shown 25% slower than
the original. Third, the clip was shown unoccluded along with a visual signal
indicating the direction of the throw. Response accuracy in the perceptual train-
ing group improved substantially from pretest (40%) to post-test (69%), while the
placebo and control groups showed no improvement. Improvement in the train-
ing group was greater in non-deceptive throws (+32%) than in deceptive throws
(+25%). This study highlights the difficulty of judging handball penalty throws
and the potential of video-based interventions to yield significant improvements
in a relatively short period of time. The same players were used in the training
and test stimuli, so the extent to which these improvements transfer to other pen-
alty takers is yet to be determined. In addition, the study focussed on response
accuracy, so how the intervention affects actual responses, particularly in respect
to response time and timing, is an important consideration.
Mann, Schaefers, and Cañal-Bruland (2014) focussed on handball goalkeepers’
judgements of penalty throws but they incorporated a manipulation of situational
 Deception in sport  111

probability information. The intervention comprised a single session in which both

groups of goalkeepers viewed video clips of two players taking 36 (direct) penalty
shots towards each corner of the goal. Each clip was first shown occluded 80 ms
before the ball was released and was then shown without occlusion to reveal the di-
rection of the shot. In both the pretest and post-test, one of the players showed a pref-
erence for shooting to the top-left corner of the goal (75% of shots), while the throws
of the other players were evenly distributed (25% to each corner). During training,
the action-preference group observed two players who directed 75% of their shots
towards the top-left corner. Conversely, the players observed by the no-preference
group distributed their throws evenly to each corner. Response accuracy in the
no-preference group did not improve following training, regardless of whether the
player in the test showed an action preference. In contrast, the action-preference
group showed a significant improvement in response accuracy and faster response
time for the player who showed the same preference during the test. However, this
group showed a decline in accuracy (and no change in response time) for the player
who showed no preference during the test, suggesting that expectations established
during training continued to bias responses for at least part of the post-test.

Conclusions and future directions

Over the past decade, researchers have significantly advanced knowledge of how
individuals perceive deceptive intent from bodily actions and contextual cues.
In so doing, they have used established methods to build upon a large body of
theoretical and empirical work on anticipation. Issues such as the role of expertise
in recognising dynamic deceptive actions, as well as the impact of eye move-
ments and ‘head fakes’ on detecting deceit, are already well developed. Yet, our
understanding remains limited regarding when and how contextual information
influences deception detection, and the contributions of motor and perceptual
experience to the successful detection of deception. We conclude the chapter by
highlighting a number of areas that should prove fruitful in working towards
a comprehensive theory of deception detection in which the implications for
performers and coaches can be more fully understood. An initial attempt us-
ing an embodied framework of deception detection was recently put forward
(Cañal-Bruland, 2017).

Responses to deceptive actions

To date, researchers using temporal occlusion have assessed performance in a
time window that shows low accuracy at the first point of occlusion followed by
a rapid increase in judgement accuracy with later occlusion points. This corre-
sponds to the time period in which performers resolve deception, moving from
being deceived (accuracy is below chance) to accurately identifying an opponent’s
true intentions. Research is needed to identify the period in which performers
become deceived, using earlier occlusion points that reveal the window in which
112  Robin C. Jackson and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland

Figure 6.3   he research laboratory at Loughborough University is fitted with a

T
12-camera Vicon motion analysis system and integrated force-plate
platform to assess player responses to actions projected onto the screen.
­SensoMotoric Instruments mobile eye-tracking glasses are used to re-
cord the player’s visual behaviour during the task.

accuracy declines from chance level. In addition, measures of the timing, am-
plitude, and force of responses may provide more sensitive measures of whether,
and the degree to which, performers are deceived (Figure 6.3). Combining these
approaches with kinematic analyses that show which variables, or combinations
of variables, predict different outcomes will enable detailed specification of the
information that causes deception (e.g. Lopes et al., 2014).

Motor and perceptual contributions

There is limited evidence regarding perceptual and motor contributions to judg-
ing deceptive intent and the findings are equivocal with respect to performance. In
non-deceptive judgement tasks, expert performers predict action outcomes more
accurately than non-experts with comparable visual experience (Aglioti et al., 2008),
and training individuals to perform an action can improve their ability to judge
action outcomes (Casile & Giese, 2006). We need to establish the degree to which
motor expertise contributes to perceptual judgements of deceptive intent and the im-
plications for training. For example, does training an individual to perform a decep-
tive action improve his/her ability to detect deceptive intent? Is the extent to which
deception detection is enhanced (or transfers to novel stimuli) dependent on the
similarity between the actions he or she is able to perform and those to be perceived?

Contextual deception
In regard to deception, action outcomes that are incongruent with an opponent’s
expectations negatively impact response accuracy or response time. The way in
 Deception in sport  113

which contextual information interacts with dynamic judgements of deceptive

intent has received little attention (cf. Barton et al., 2013). It is likely that prior
information biases performers towards making more responses that are congru-
ent with expectations; however, whether this affects the ability to discriminate
between genuine and deceptive actions is unclear. Signal detection analysis pro-
duces separate measures of response bias and response sensitivity that appear
particularly well suited to address this question (see Cañal-Bruland & Schmidt,
2009; Jackson et al., 2018). Initial findings using signal detection analyses of
football step-overs suggest that deceptive actions b­ ecome ‘super-­deceptive’
when the direction of the fake is aligned with performer expectations about
the more likely outcome. This results in a stronger bias to respond in line with
probability information when the action is deceptive than when it is genuine,
and reduces the ability to discriminate between genuine and deceptive actions
( Jackson & Barton, 2018). This calls into question the value of probability in-
formation for those trying to anticipate action outcomes, suggesting that such
knowledge might increase their susceptibility to deception.

Training to discriminate between genuine and

deceptive actions
Thus far, only one published report has focussed on trying to improve performers’
ability to judge deceptive actions (Alsharji & Wade, 2016). Although the results were
promising, there is a need for studies that assess retention over time along with trans-
fer to other performers and time-constrained competitive performance. The efficacy
of different training protocols, particularly in regard to the degree of explicit instruc-
tion given to performers and subsequent effects on performing in pressure situations,
is also yet to be examined (Abernethy, Schorer, Jackson, & Hagemann, 2012).
There has been a marked increase in the number and scope of studies on de-
ception over the past decade. Findings from these studies partly support those
from similar work on anticipation while also showing how reliance on visual
and contextual information can leave performers vulnerable to deception.
With deceptive actions so common in many sports, and performance analysis
data becoming more readily available, a key challenge for researchers and prac-
titioners is to understand how anticipation, deception, and prior knowledge
interact to influence performance. By working together, researchers and sport
organisations will develop a better understanding of how knowledge and data
can best be exploited in an environment replete with deceptive intent.

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