Jörg Schorer

• PhD
• Professor at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

The iCodes model by Jekel et al. (2018) states predictions about the information search in decision-making processes. Previous research validated the attraction search effect in various nonsport scenarios. This investigation explores coaches’ decision making in athlete selection contexts using the iCodes model’s main hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 states...

In this paper, we describe two studies on the association among long-term developmental outcomes and relative age effects. To extend or compliment the cross-sectional work done previously, these studies take different approaches to investigate the association of relative age effects on long-term development. In the first, a retrospective approach i...

In the last thirty years research on relative age effects (RAEs) has exploded in numbers. However, the stability and variability of these effects have hardly been investigated. The three aims of this retrospective study were first to investigate the stability and variability of RAEs over 17 years, second to compare these effects for young female an...

Athlete age-grouping and age-banding has been shown to impact sport participation and athlete development. The current study examined the impact of within-year (WYEs) and between-year effects (BYEs), and their interactions with playing position, on female participation in elite German football. The sample of 1,378 German first-league players reveal...

Background: The reduction of muscular hypertonia is important in the treatment of various diseases or rehabilitation. This study aims to test the efficacy of a 5 Hz mechanical muscle stimulation (tapotement massage) in comparison to a 5 Hz repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation (rPMS) on the neuromuscular reflex response. Methods: In a randomiz...

Player development programmes in sports are considered crucial pillars for the development of young players and countries’ international sporting success. As resources are limited, coaches preferably decide which players to select for these programmes at a young age. This is particularly true for early-starting sports such as table tennis. However,...

One of the most convincing studies about the importance of the cutoff date in relative age effects was when Helsen et al. (2000) showed that a shift in the date directly resulted in a change of birth month distributions in soccer. Over the past four decades, the role of the birth year has also been associated with relative age effects (as reflected...

Introduction Handball goalkeepers have to act under severe spatio-temporal pressure in both standardised (e.g., 7 m penalty) and non-standardised situations (e.g., backcourt throws) which require them to predict action outcome before ball flight is visible. So far, research on goalkeepers’ cue utilisation for anticipation of an opponent’s action ha...

Das Service-Forschungsprojekt „Explizites und implizites Trainer:innenwissen zur Talentsichtung im Tischtennis“ (Aktenzeichen: 072007/21-22) wurde von Sportwissenschaftler:innen der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg in Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Tischtennis-Bund e.V. durchgeführt und vom Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) geförde...

When making talent-selection decisions in sport, coaches, scouts, program directors, and policymakers typically adopt two approaches: The subjective approach, also known as the coach's eye, where these professionals select or de-select athletes based on their personal observations and impressions; and the objective approach, where they apply a mult...

Laterality is considered relevant to performance in combat sports with particular emphasis being placed on fighters' handedness and combat stance. Such approach, however, may fall too short to understand the role of laterality in sports where fighters are allowed to use their hands and feet standing and on the ground. Here, we referred to grappling...

Zusammenfassung: Studien zur Untersuchung der Effekte transkranieller Wechselstromstimulation (tACS) auf komplexe Präzisionssportarten wie das Golfen liegen bisher nicht vor. Für den Golfputt deuten bisherige elektrophysiologische Studien auf einen Zusammenhang zwischen Putt-Leistung und der EEG-Aktivität im Alpha-Frequenzbereich hin. In der vorlie...

Lehrkräfte nehmen konstant Unterrichtssituationen wahr und leiten mögliche Unterrichtshandlungen ab. Der Sportunterricht unterscheidet sich durch die hohe Dichte an komplexen und räumlich dispersen Wahrnehmungsaufgaben während der Beobachtung und Korrektur von sportlichen Bewegungen von anderen Fächern. Das Ziel dieses Systematic Reviews ist es, qu...

Das Kapitel „Perzeptuelle Expertise im Sport“ stellt überblicksartig den Forschungsstand zur Wahrnehmung bei sportlichen Spitzenleistungen dar. Nach der Erläuterung des Expertiseansatzes werden verschiedene Forschungsideen, strukturiert nach der taktischen Situationskomplexität, vorgestellt. Zunächst wird die perzeptuelle Expertise in einer 1:0-Sit...

Background: The assessment of technical skills as part of a multidimensional approach for talent identification and development in table tennis appears promising. The O3T was developed to assess young table tennis players' technical skills in a highly representative match situation. In this study, two expert coaches (highest coaching license, 25+ y...

Background Research on talent in sports aims to identify predictors of future performance. This study retrospectively investigated 1) relationships between young handball field players’ technical throwing skills and (a) their potential nomination to youth national teams and (b) their long-term career attainment 10 years later, and 2) associations b...

Tafeltennis is bij uitstek een voorbeeld van een technische sport. Wil je de top bereiken dan is het cruciaal om uitstekende technische vaardigheden te ontwikkelen. Het aanleren en trainen van technische vaardigheden is dan ook een belangrijk thema in de trainersopleidingen, bijscholingen en ook in de tafeltennisliteratuur. Echter, als je een spele...

Background: Within the topic of intersex athletes in elite sports, science has become a decisive factor in decision- and policy making. However, in the academic literature approaches to this topic vary. An overview of these approaches is proposed to provide better insight into relevant aspects and underlying values and may serve as a starting poin...

Referees are challenged for accurate decision-making under physical and psychological load. However, erroneous decision-making can lead referees to repeatedly negatively think about the error, i.e. they begin to ruminate. Previous studies focused on the relationship between decision-making and either physical or psychological load. Here, we examine...

Im Jahr 2020 führte ein Team von Sportwissenschaftler*innen der Universität Oldenburg in Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Tischtennis-Bund e.V. ein Forschungsprojekt zum Thema „Technikbewertung bei jungen Tischtennisspieler*innen“ durch. Dieses neunmonatige, vom Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) geförderte Service-Forschungsprojekt (Aktenzei...

Correct decision-making under physical load is a central challenge for referees in sports games. Handball referees are assumed to make both a decision (calling a foul or no foul) and to call its reasonings (type of foul, punishments). However, the impact of physical load on these two aspects has not been differentiated so far. Here, in two studies,...

Background The assessment of technical skills as part of a multidimensional approach for talent identification and development in sports seems promising, especially in a technique-based sport like table tennis. However, current instruments mostly focus on a single element of technical skills, mainly use quantitative outcomes, and/or are not develop...

Anticipation in sports is commonly investigated using perception-action uncoupled methods, thus raising questions regarding transferability of findings to the field. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of different degrees of perception-action coupling on anticipation in handball goalkeeping. Advanced, intermediate and novice han...

Im letzten Jahr führte ein Team von Sportwissenschaftlerinnen und Sportwissenschaftlern der Universität Oldenburg in Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Tischtennisbund e.V. ein Forschungsprojekt zum Thema der Technikbewertung bei jungen Tischtennisspieler*innen durch. Dieses neunmonatige und vom Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) geförderte Ser...

Talent selection has become an integral part of many nations’ athlete development systems. In this context, a coach often serves as a decision-maker, selecting or deselecting athletes based on their intuition, a phenomenon that has generally come to be referred to as “coach’s eye”. However, there is no consistent operational definition of this term...

In this commentary on Joan Vicker’s target article (2016), we first recognize the work she has done in the last 35 years. We then provide examples of differentiations of the Quiet Eye (QE) that might be necessary to fully understand the multifacetedness of the phenomenon. Here we propose, as in our current review (Rienhoff, Tirp, Strauss, Baker, &...

Free downloads: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WUWRQYYKIW2D7ACNRQGU/full?target=10.1080/13598139.2021.1900792 This literature review provides an overview of the various modern approaches in talent programs for the context of schools and sports reported in scientific journals (2009–2019) and presents their similarities and differences and optio...

Relative age effects (RAE) describe the unintended side effect of annual age grouping such that athletes born close to a specific cutoff date are more likely to be associated with attaining higher performance status than athletes born later. One factor suggested to override the RAE is handedness. Given the left-handers' rarity and their proposed pe...

Sleep facilitates perceptual, cognitive and motor learning; however, the role of sleep for perceptual learning in sports is yet unclear. Here, we tested the impact of sleep on novices' visual anticipation training using a handball goalkeeping task. To this end, 30 novices were divided randomly in two groups and asked to predict the directional outc...

Intersexuality is complex issue within society and has long been disregarded (Cull & Simmonds, 2010). The neglect of intersexuality has caused problems. Especially in women’s sports, it has developed to one of the most contentious issues (Harper et al., 2018). Different stakeholders have commented, criticized, and proposed on the issue for years. S...

Sensorimotor control simultaneously engages multiple cognitive processes, like decision making, intention, processing, and the integration of multisensory signals. The reciprocal relationship of cognition and sensorimotor learning is well documented. However, little is known if the status of cognitive skills relates to immediate sensorimotor perfor...

Erschienen im Trainerbrief 03/20: Tischtennis ist eine der schnellsten Sportarten mit höchsten Ansprüchen an die Technik der Spieler*innen. Eine herausragende Technik ermöglicht unter sich ständig verändernden Bedingungen und großem Zeitdruck effektive Lösungen für die Herausforderungen des Gegenübers zu finden. Obwohl sich die Leistung im Tischte...

Background: Talent identification and development (TID) programs aim to identify players with the greatest potential for longterm success. Previous research suggests that the assessment of sport-specific technical skills is valuable for discriminating between more and less skilled individuals and/or for predicting future performance. Objective: Thi...

The need for a developmental perspective is the elephant in the room whenever relative age effects (RAEs) are discussed – everyone sees it, but no talks about it. Amazingly, no studies have taken this perspective to study designs in this area. In this chapter, we explain the basis of the developmental systems model of RAEs proposed by Wattie, Schor...

Investigations of the association of focus of attention and quiet eye duration have shown mixed results. It is possible that when focusing on visuo-motor learning a more sensitive category system of instructions might be useful. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of focus of attention and quiet eye duration in darts. In additi...

Despite the importance of technique and tactics for athlete performance, there has been surprisingly little research on the value of these skills in talent identification and development. This study investigated the relationship between coaches’ early notational analyses of female youth handball players and the long-term success of these athletes....

Instability resistance training (RT) or exercising within an unstable environment is a popular training modality and frequently used in training, rehabilitation and prevention settings. Yet, due to the reported reduced force output during exercising within unstable condition, instability RT is said to lack the necessary overload to induce meaningfu...

Although relative age effects in sports have been studied worldwide, the underlying mechanisms are still under debate. This study adds to the existing knowledge by providing a further exploration of the association between relative age and the performance trajectories over four years in youth players of an individual skill/technique based sport: ta...

Since technical skills are suggested to play a crucial role in talent identification and development (TID) programs, sports biomechanical assessment methods could gain in importance within this field. This systematic mini review provides a brief overview of the biomechanical approaches used so far to assess technical skills and the respective findi...

Although relative age effects in sports have been studied worldwide , the underlying mechanisms are still under debate. This study adds to the existing knowledge by providing a further exploration of the within-year and between-year effects and their possible interaction in an individual skill/technique based sport: table tennis. Data of male and f...

Referees in sports games have a high level of responsibility as they have to make correct and appropriate decisions at any point during a match. Regarding referees’ decision-making (RDM) as a perceptual-cognitive process, evidence suggests that physical load might reduce cognitive performance and thus might reduce RDM performance as well. In consid...

The relative age effect (RAE) refers to the asymmetrical distribution of birthdates in a cohort found in many achievement domains, particularly in sports with many participants like soccer. Given the uniqueness of the one-child policy in China, this study examined the existence of the RAE in elite Chinese male and female soccer players generally an...

Knowledge of an opponent's action preference may affect visual anticipation of their action outcome. Specifically, if an opponent acts according to their purported preference, anticipation may be facilitated. Conversely, if an opponent does not act according to their purported preference, anticipation may be unaffected or even harmed. The underlyin...

The spatio-temporal demands of many high performance sport contexts require a strategic interplay between anticipation from early kinematic cues and the appropriate movement strategy. Despite the importance of the interaction between observer and deceiver in these contexts, this dyad is usually considered separately (i.e., from perceptual-cognitive...

Though the existence of Relative Age Effects (RAEs) has been documented through a multitude of studies spanning various sports and levels of play, application of solutions related to RAEs has been limited. In this review, the strengths and weaknesses of various proposed solutions to RAEs in youth sport are considered. Our objective was to identify,...

The development of the field of sport expertise over the past 20 years has been remarkable, and our understanding of the varying factors affecting athlete development and motor skill acquisition has expanded considerably. Recently, there has been a push toward more sophisticated research designs to continue the advancement of our understanding of s...

Previous research has explored ‘community size effects’ in a multitude of sporting and regional contexts and has shown that athletes are more likely to originate from small-medium population size categories, and less likely to originate from very small or large ones. However, it is not clear whether the production of athletes is homogenous within p...

Objectives The validity of sporting talent is hotly contested by those working, watching, and participating in sport in its variety of forms. Despite considerable research attention to understanding talent development in sport settings, the overall utility of this concept is not known. One of the reasons for this is that sporting talent has not bee...

In sport, perceptual skill training software is intended to assist tactical training in the field. The aim of this field study was to test whether “laboratory-based” pattern recall training would augment tactical skill training performed on the field. Twenty-six soccer players between 14 and 16 years of age from a single team participated in this s...

Inconsistencies in community size effects found between and within countries1–3 suggest population size may not be an accurate predictor of athlete development, and that other proxies of early environmental characteristics are needed. Researchers have begun to explore the influence of population density and proximity to local sport clubs on athlete...

In this chapter, we review and discuss the empirical evidence on perceptual expertise available from the handball literature so far that relates to the four groups of actors—goalkeepers, field players, coaches and referees. As will be clear from the following sections, considerable effort has been invested in examining and understanding goalkeepers...

Background: Music listening is wide-spread in amateur sports. Ergometer exercise is one such activity which is often performed with loud music. Aim and Hypotheses: We investigated the effects of electronic music at different intensity levels on ergometer performance (physical performance, force on the pedal, pedaling frequency), perceived fatigue a...

Background: Talent identification (TID) programs are an integral part of the selection process for elite-level athletes. While many sport organizations utilize TID programs, there does not seem to be a clear set of variables that consistently predict future success. Objective: This review aims to synthesize longitudinal and retrospective studies...

The past few decades have seen a significant change in the delivery of sport and in trends related to athlete development. However, the notion of talent continues to play a critical role in most athlete development models. In this brief review, we highlight concerns with the notion of talent and how it is conceptualized in high performance sport sy...

In most sports, the development of elite athletes is a long-term process of talent identification and support. Typically, talent selection systems administer a multi-faceted strategy including national coach observations and varying physical and psychological tests when deciding who is chosen for talent development. The aim of this exploratory stud...

The community size effect (or birthplace effect) suggests that high-performance athletes are less likely to emerge from regions with population sizes that are very small or very large. However, previous research on elite Canadian ice hockey players has not considered the influence of intra-national regional variation of population distributions wit...

The aim of this study was to investigate multi-task integration in a continuous tracking task. We were particularly interested in how manipulating task structure in a dual-task situation affects learning of a constant segment embedded in a pursuit-tracking task. Importantly, we examined if dual-task effects could be attributed to task integration b...

Selection biases based on the use of cut-off dates and the timing of athletes’ birthdates have been termed relative age effects. These effects have been shown to differentially affect individuals involved in sport. For example, young male soccer players born early in their age group are overrepresented in elite teams while studies in adult soccer i...

Significant research to date has been devoted to the effect of geographical factors on becoming an elite athlete. However, given that much of our understanding results from National-level analyses, our knowledge of these effects in terms of regional geographical factors is limited. It is hypothesized that regions of a certain size offer access to s...

Background Many researchers have considered the impact of physical exercise on perceptual-cognitive performance. There have also been a substantial number of studies that have examined how perceptual-cognitive skills differ between elite athletes and non-athletes. However, the knowledge on how physical exercise interacts with perceptual-cognitive s...

This chapter focuses on possible influences of laterality on talent identification and athlete development. Given the extensive time frame involved with talent development and many sports' increasing focus on early identification, we concentrate on young talented athletes during early stages of their sporting development. The interaction of lateral...

In the context of perceptual-cognitive expertise it is important to know whether physiological loads influence perceptual-cognitive performance. This study examined whether a handball specific physical exercise load influenced participants’ speed and accuracy in a flicker task. At rest and during a specific interval exercise of 86.5–90% HRmax, 35 p...

Studies examining experts' superiority within domain-specific structured pattern recall tasks have typically had athletes perform them at rest, which is far different from how they are executed in their sport. The aim of this study was to investigate whether performing these tasks under different physical exercise intensities influenced pattern rec...

Introduction: The quiet eye (final fixation to a specific target prior to movement initiation) is a perceptual skill robustly associated with expertise and superior performance. The benefit of the phenomenon has been demonstrated in a range of sporting tasks. The mechanism(s) underpinning this phenomenon are much-debated and are associated with va...

The current state of research on relative age effects in basketball shows an uneven picture. These mixed results might be caused by the interaction of constituent year and within-year effects. Our aim was to examine constituent and within-1-year effects in elite German youth basketball. The sample (n = 4400) included players competing in the JBBL (...

Background: Relative age effects (RAEs) typically favour older members within a cohort; however, research suggests that younger players may experience some long-term advantages, such as longer career length. The purposes of this study were to replicate previous findings on RAEs among National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey players, National Basket...

There is little research investigating the maintenance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in general and even less comparing coaches of different ages. The aim of this study was to test for perceptual-cognitive differences between age groups, licence levels, and their interaction. This study investigated differences in skilled performance between yo...

Although some research suggests age-related changes in the visual system are inevitable, other work indicates that expert performers in sport are able to maintain performance despite increasing age. This study examined aspects of skilled perceptual performance among older female experts (n = 6), advanced players (n = 7) and novices (n = 10). As exp...

Over the last ten years, there has been significant research devoted to how size of one's birthplace affects likelihood of becoming an elite athlete based on the assumption that access to early resources can impede opportunities for skill development. Despite this attention, our understanding of how geographical factors constrain or facilitate skil...

A left-handers' performance advantage in interactive sports is assumed to result from their relative rarity compared to right-handers. Part of this advantage may be explained by athletes facing difficulties anticipating left-handers' action intentions, particularly when anticipation is based on kinematic cues available at an early stage of an oppon...

There is mounting research to suggest that cognitive and motor expertise is more resistant to age-related decline than more general capacities. The authors investigated the retention of skills in medium-aged skilled (n = 14) and older-aged skilled (n = 7) athletes by comparing them with medium-aged less skilled (n = 15) and older-aged less skilled...

Virtual realities offer a safe and repeatable learning environment, which is optimal for skills that are difficult to replicate in real-world settings. Previous research has demonstrated transfer of motor skill between basketball and darts but not of perceptual performance (Rienhoff et al., 2013). Our study considered the transferability of a speci...

The purpose of this study was to examine how internal versus external focus of attention influences quiet-eye duration during basketball free-throw shooting. Three basketball groups (experts, advanced, novices) had their focus of attention manipulated using verbal instructions to concentrate on the ball (external), concentrate on their hands (inter...

The policies that dictate the participation structure of many youth sport systems involve the use of a set selection date (e.g. 31 December), which invariably produces relative age differences between those within the selection year (e.g. 1 January to 31 December). Those born early in the selection year (e.g. January) are relatively older-by as muc...

The aim of the current study was to explore relative age’s influence on physical and motor tests among fourth grade children (9 to 10 years) from Germany. Data from 1218 children (49% female) who had performed the German Motor Ability Test (Bös et al., 2009) were analysed. The test battery, which was comprised of physical and motor tests, included...

Abstract The consistency of community size effects in North American contexts but not elsewhere, reinforces the notion that the effect is driven by socio-cultural factors specific to the country under examination. In order to identify and understand the various forces driving the community size effect, it is important to determine whether the effec...

This study examined the impact of lateral preferences (i.e. left-dominant vs. right-dominant fighting stance) on success at different levels of judo competition (German University Championships vs. German Championships vs. Olympic Games). The lateralization of the fighting stance of 840 male judoka (Olympic Games n = 204, German Championships n = 2...

Abstract In many sports, policy-makers and administrators employ annual cohorts to reduce differences between athletes during childhood and youth. Although well-intended, unintended relative age effects (RAEs) usually occur. RAEs refer to the specific selection, participation and attainment disadvantages associated with participants' birthdates rel...

Abstract Relative age describes a youth's age within their age group cohort. Compared to relatively younger peers, relatively older youth in an annual age group cohort have been found more likely to be selected to sports teams, and to receive higher grades in education. This study examined the influence of youth sport participants' relative age on...

Performers with a left-orientation have a greater likelihood of obtaining elite levels of performance in many interactive sports. This study examined whether combat stance orientation was related to skill and success in Mixed Martial Arts fighters. Data were extracted for 1468 mixed martial artists from a reliable and valid online data source. Meas...

The quiet eye is a perceptual skill associated with expertise and superior performance; however, little is known about the transfer of quiet eye across domains. We attempted to replicate previous skill-based differences in quiet eye and investigated whether transfer of motor and perceptual skills occurs between similar tasks. Throwing accuracy and...

The importance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport has been repeatedly demonstrated. In this study we examined the role of different sources of visual information (i.e., foveal versus peripheral) in anticipating volleyball attack positions. Expert (n = 11), advanced (n = 13) and novice (n = 16) players completed an anticipation task that inv...

In an effort to understand the process of skill acquisition and decline, researchers have largely neglected a critical aspect of this development – maximizing time at the highest levels of achievement. This study examined length of career for professional athletes in basketball, football, ice hockey, and baseball and considers whether career length...

Visually guided tracking paradigms can provide insight into the adaptability of motor control strategies. We argue that the question of whether a sensorimotor process, or its absence, is beneficial or detrimental for performance is one that needs to be answered relative to the sensory cues available in the environment and the given task constraints...

In this manuscript we argue for a broader use of the term 'relative age effect' due to the influence of varying development policies on the development of sport expertise. Two studies are presented on basis of data from Schorer, et al. [1]. The first showed clear 'constant year effects' in the German handball talent development system. A shift in y...