The limits of action control for deceptive actions in sports: Response inhibition for the basketball pump fake

Even NBA players fall for pump fakes in approximately 73% of the time and initiate erroneous blocking movements. To investigate the spatio-temporal and dynamic constraints of inhibition performance in basketball, the basketball-specific anticipation-response inhibition (ARI) task was applied in a quasi-realistic scenario. To this end, a video of a basketball jump shot was presented and participants were instructed to jump up and press a buzzer at the ceiling to “block” the shot (go-trials). In 25% of all trials, a simulation of a pump fake was presented, and participants should withhold their response (stop-trials). To measure response inhibition ability, the point of no return (PNR, signifying a response-inhibition rate of 50%) was calculated. The PNR was located 462 ms before the point of ball release. The response-precision performance improved from the first half of the experiment (Blocks 1–3) to the second half of the experiment (Blocks 4–6), indicating effects of short-term practice. In addition, participants shifted their priority in favor of inhibition after a preceding stop-trial, which is reminiscent of strategic adaptations. Selective biomechanical parameters, measured by a force plate, revealed that response initiation becomes more likely the closer the progression of the execution of the deceptive action moves towards the PNR. Once a response is initiated, it can only be aborted in the early phase of movement execution before the PNR is reached. As a consequence, participants delayed their response in a go-trial, used less force, and slowed down their movements to increase the probability to successfully inhibit the defensive action.