Who: Berry College Volleyball Athletes
What: Berry College Volleyball Tournament
Where: Berry College Cage Center
When: Saturday 11:00am - 7:00pm


Reaction Time (RT): An example of reaction time among Berry volleyball players during this tournament is when a player goes back to serve the ball. The stimuli that signals the player to serve the ball is when the referee blows his or her whistle and makes a hand movement to signify to the player that they are now allowed to serve the ball to the opposing team. From the period the referee blows the whistle and the server starts her serve or jump serve is the reaction time. During this time the server is deciding where to serve the ball or the coach is telling the player where to serve the ball. Then that player determines how hard they are going to hit the ball and in what direction.

Hick's Law: An example of Hick's Law in a volleyball game is when a player goes up to hit the ball. The player has different response choices based on how the opposing team is set up on the other side of the net. If there is a blocker or two blockers in front of the hitter the hitter has the choice of hitting around the block, hitting through the block if there is a gap between the two blockers, tipping the ball over the blockers, or hitting the ball where there is no blocker present but there is a back row specialist that may or may not be in position. All of these choices have to be processed while in flight and the reaction time is based on what options you see available to you to score a point for your team. The longer it takes a player to see certain openings the more delayed ones reaction time is and the more likely a player is to hit the ball into the net. But with practice volleyball players learn to read the defense much more quickly.

Psychological Refractory Period (PRP): An example of PRP in volleyball is when a player sees the ball is being set to them. Their first reaction is to jump towards the ball and the net. So upward and forward. The second RT stimulus is longer than the first RT because the second RT is then when the player begins to swing her arm forward to make contact with the ball that was set by the setter most of the time. this action doesn't happen till the player has reached the high of her jump.

Anticipation: When Berry did not posses the ball they were predicting how and when the ball would be played out on the opposing teams side. This would be considered temporal anticipation. If the first pass was an accurate pass to the setter then Berry would expect the setter to set one of the outside hitters, but if the first pass was a wild out of control pass and went far off the court and another player had gotten to the ball and placed it back on the court, Berry would yell free ball because bumping the ball over the net would be the smartest way to get the ball over the net because that is when you have the most control over the ball. Some inaccurate spatial anticipation I noticed among the defensive sides was when they thought the hitter on the offensive side was going to hit the ball with full force but instead the hitter decided to just barely tip the ball over the net. This leaves the back row players on the defensive side diving to make a touch on the ball after reading the hitter wrong. This increases the reaction time for the defensive player because they have to recorrect the decision they made to go in one direction and now they start moving in the direction of the unanticipated stimuli. Some girls on Berry's team had shorter reaction times because of their athletic ability to change direction more quickly and process the mistake they had made and make a quick movement to fix it before it is to late to make a touch on the ball.