20 skilled female handball players participated in the study. All participants were goalkeepers in the National Women`s Handball League in the Netherlands. Participants underwent a training protocol to improve their ability to anticipate an opponents shot for goal in a computer-based task. Half of the participants were exposed to a training protocol that involved watching videos whereby the opponent displayed a preference for shooting the ball to one location (termed action-preference group). The other half of the participants watched videos of an opponent shooting to various locations at random (termed no action-preference group). Participants ability to anticipate the opponents shot direction was measured before and after training. Importantly, the authors manipulated the pre- and post-test so that half of the trials involved 1 player shooting the ball with an action preference (the same action preference that the action-preference group were exposed to during training), while the other half of the trials involved a second player who did not display an action preference.
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