An assessment of the recognition of post-performance non-verbal behaviour in table tennis dyads based on point outcome

The visible non-verbal behaviour of table tennis dyads after a rally can convey meaningful information about the players’ internal state. Because these behavioural cues often reflect affective processes, understanding the situational factors that shape their intensity can deepen insight into how affect emerges and fluctuates during performance and inform regulation strategies. Building on this idea, in the present study, we aimed to assess whether the point outcome (i.e., win/loss) or the importance of the situation (i.e., beginning/end of a set) would influence how well this kind of non-verbal behaviour can be recognised. To this end, 104 participants were shown 40 video excerpts with the non-verbal behaviour of male table tennis dyads of the German first division immediately after a rally. After each video excerpt, they were asked to estimate whether the table tennis dyads shown just won or lost a point. The overall recognition rate was 86.93%. The results further showed that the recognition rates did not significantly differ between won (87.79%) and lost (85.87%) rallies, however, they were significantly higher for situations at the end (89.52%) than at the beginning (84.14%) of a set. ... mehrConsidering the interaction between point outcome and the importance of the situation, the results further showed that recognition rates for lost rallies at the end of a set (91.44%) were higher than for lost rallies at the beginning of a set (80.29%), while the recognition rates between won rallies from the beginning (87.98%) and the end (87.60%) of a set did not significantly differ.