Ricardo A. M. Robalo, CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana/Universidade de Lisboa, Dafundo, Portugal
Ana M. F. A. Diniz, CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana/Universidade de Lisboa, Dafundo, Portugal
Pedro J. M. Passos, CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana/Universidade de Lisboa, Dafundo, Portugal

Abstract: Previous research identified the stability of wrist position as a performance indicator in a static basketball dribbling task performance under different experimental conditions since professionals displayed higher stability values than amateurs. We hypothesized that the trajectories of this cyclical task may be different between amateurs and professionals under downward peripheral vision occlusion and auditory occlusion. A modified version of the Procrustes analysis was used to quantify the dissimilarity between wrist trajectories along time. Results showed that peripheral vision occlusion caused dissimilarity in amateurs dribbling trajectories almost four times larger than professionals ; however, auditory occlusion did not affect neither amateur nor professionals performance. There were no cumulative effects on performance when the individual was submitted to both occlusions simultaneously.

Keywords: dissimilarity, performance, basketball dribbling, perceptual information, motor control