NEWS

Graduating from Texas Tech in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science, Samantha Huffman, a polo player and PhD candidate, sought to learn more about the sport of polo through the lens of academia. Developing "Spot the Ball: A Study of Situation Awareness in Athletes," Huffman hopes to give more academic attention to the sport she loves. She also played intercollegiate polo for Texas Tech Polo Club (2011-2014) and worked for the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Polo Club in Kaufman, Texas, from 2016 to 2019. Learn more about the results of the study below and her next upcoming study.

To keep everyone safe on the polo field, players use Field Awareness which has been championed by players and coaches including legendary coach, Tom Goodspeed. Field Awareness, or the more broadly known Situation Awareness, is knowing what is going on around you, and it allows us to make good plays and score goals while keeping ourselves, our fellow players, and our ponies safe. Researchers and sports practitioners alike have suggested that Situation Awareness aids in athletes’ performances and decision-making. They have also suggested that expertise in a sport allows an athlete to achieve a higher level of Situation Awareness.

To study Situation Awareness in polo players, a research team from Nottingham Trent University (Nottingham, UK) developed a 15-minute static image “Spot the Ball” game that presented polo players and non-polo players (control participants) with polo images where the ball has been digitally removed. In some images, the mallet was removed to isolate its effect on polo prediction. The players viewed the images and clicked where they believe the missing ball to be. The “Spot the Ball” game was designed as a simple, yet challenging test that identified if environmental cues could be used to predict where the missing ball is on a still image. This was an important step in identifying how polo players gain Situation Awareness and could ultimately be used to predict and train game performance.

Overall, in the “Spot the Ball” task, polo players were more accurate than the non-polo players, suggesting that polo players demonstrated expertise even in static-image prediction. Polo players had superior accuracy scores particularly when the photograph showed a player looking at the ball. This suggested that polo Situation Awareness and prediction skills are aided by other players’ gaze orientations. In other words, when a player looks towards the ball, you are better able to predict the location of that ball by following that player’s gaze. This can be important when you are defending a player with the intent of intercepting the ball. By following your opponent’s gaze, you can more easily find the ball and make the steal.

Interestingly, the mallet inclusion or exclusion had no effect on the accuracy scores. Accuracy scores were similar regardless of the mallet being visible in the photo or removed from the photo. This was surprising given the importance of the mallet positioning with the ball trajectory. Therefore, other visual cues were likely to be more important than the mallet angle. Perhaps a player’s posture or even the pony’s direction was a larger influence on polo player Situation Awareness in a prediction task. To determine which visual cues are important in static-image prediction, more research will need to be conducted.

For those astute individuals who notice that polo is indeed a dynamic sport and cannot accurately be captured in a still image, fear not. The research team is currently conducting a video-based task that tests polo player’s prediction and anticipation abilities. This task, named “What Happens Next?” uses video footage of a polo game and a simple question of: what happens next? Participants watch a short video clip of an unfolding play situation. At the end of the clip, participants must predict what would have happened if the video kept playing by answering a multiple-choice question. At the end of the task, the participant’s score is tallied to create a total Situation Awareness score. In short, those with higher scores have better Situation Awareness.

The “What Happens Next?” tool has been used to evaluate Situation Awareness in a variety of other domains, but so far has not been applied to a sports setting. The research team hopes to validate a polo-specific “What Happens Next?” tool that can be used to assess polo players’ Situation Awareness, and even train Situation Awareness in beginner players. This tool may potentially also be used for umpire training, rules testing, and coaching. Ultimately, there is hope that the research into polo player Situation Awareness can improve the safety and performance in polo as well as garner more interest in polo in academia.

Polo is under-represented in many scientific and academic fields. There are significant gaps in academic knowledge surrounding polo, particularly from a psychology standpoint. Huffman is fortunate in her position as a PhD researcher and polo player to be able to fill in some of those gaps. By taking part in this study, you will personally help to shine a research spotlight on the sport of polo.

The voluntary “What Happens Next?” study takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete and requires the use of a laptop or desktop computer.

For more information about the project, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the research team.

Principle Investigator: Samantha Huffman
Department of Psychology
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham, United Kingdom
NG1 4FQ
samantha.huffman2014@my.ntu.ac.uk

Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Mackenzie
Department of Psychology
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham, United Kingdom
NG1 4FQ
andrew.mackenzie@ntu.ac.uk