Auditory Stimulus Manipulation and Decision-Making in Sports Games

This study examines decision-making in sports games. In the context of a concept in sports game pedagogy known as the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA), the study investigates how athletes perceive their decision-making in soccer under various auditory environmental conditions. An experimental study was conducted in conjunction with this research. The aim of this study was to determine whether changes in auditory stimuli influence participants' perceived decision-making during sports games. The results show that sports students perceive their decision-making ability to be improved under regular auditory conditions compared to the other two background noise conditions: loud music and silence. Based on these findings and the current state of research, it can be concluded that auditory environmental stimuli constitute an important component of the holistic decision-making process. Accordingly, it stands to reason that auditory changes, as defined by the CLA, can be specifically employed as a training method to support athletes with specific training needs.