Consider the following performance situation: You are a basketball player guarding an opponent who has the ball. You know that about 80% of the time in this situation the player will move to your right and take a
shot. So, you prepare to move in that direction. But, unexpectedly the player moves to your left. Which of the following describes your RT to their movement in this situation?

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The question describes a performance scenario in which you, as a defender, anticipate the opponent’s move based on prior probabilities, but the actual move deviates from that expectation. Now, let’s evaluate each option in light of motor preparation and reaction time concepts.
Option A: 'It is not possible to predict RT without more information about the situation' This claim suggests that reaction time cannot be inferred from anticipation or motor preparation alone. In cognitive and sports psychology, pre-planning a motor response can influence RT when the actual movement requires a different direction because the initial motor plan must be inhibited or unselected before executing the correct action. While some situational specifics matter, the general principle here—preparing to move in one direction can slow RT if the actual required movement is opposite—allows us to reason about relative changes in RT. Therefore, this option is not the best representation of the described effect, even though it raises a valid caution about needing context.
Option B: 'RT will be slower than if you had not prepared to move to the right' This aligns with the idea of motor-programming and response-selection costs. If you instantiate a directional motor plan (move right) based on expectancy (80% likelihood), but the correct action is to move left, you must inhibit or cancel the prepared rightward plan and then initiate a leftward movement. The additional cognitive and neural processing required to overwrite the initial plan typically results in a longer reaction time compared to a scenario where no specific directional preparation was made. This option directly reflects the cost of incorrect preparation.
Option C: 'RT will be the same as if you had not prepared to move to the right' If preparation did not influence RT, one would expect identical speeds regardless of prior planning. However, research on premovement activation and expectancy shows that preparation often changes timing, especially when the planned action is violated by the actual stimulus or instruction. Therefore, this option ignores well-established effects of motor anticipation and inhibition, making it unlikely to be correct in this scenario.
Option D: 'RT will be faster than if you had not prepared to move to the right' This would imply that preparing to move right would accelerate the correct response to move left when observed. In practice, preparing an incorrect direction typically does not speed up the subsequent correct response; it usually imposes a cost due to the need to suppress or alter the planned response. Hence, this option contradicts the common understanding of response inhibition and motor planning costs in chance- or expectancy-driven actions.
In summary, option B is capturing the expected consequence of misleading movement preparation: the reaction time is increased because the initial plan to move right must be overridden when the movement is actually to the left, while the other options fail to account for the cost of incorrect motor preparation or misconstrue the effect of anticipation on RT.

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