Is the "hot-hands" phenomenon a misperception of random events? (original) (raw)
Related papers
PLoS ONE, 2011
The long lasting debate initiated by Gilovich, Vallone and Tversky in 1985 is revisited: does a ''hot hand'' phenomenon exist in sports? Hereby we come back to one of the cases analyzed by the original study, but with a much larger data set: all free throws taken during five regular seasons (2005=6{2009=10) of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Evidence supporting the existence of the ''hot hand'' phenomenon is provided. However, while statistical traces of this phenomenon are observed in the data, an open question still remains: are these non random patterns a result of ''success breeds success'' and ''failure breeds failure'' mechanisms or simply ''better'' and ''worse'' periods? Although free throws data is not adequate to answer this question in a definite way, we speculate based on it, that the latter is the dominant cause behind the appearance of the ''hot hand'' phenomenon in the data.
The “hot hand” revisited: A nonstationarity argument
The "hot hand belief," that a basketball player would experience elevated performance for a certain period of time, during which consecutive shots are made in streaks, has been suggested to be a "cognitive illusion," because, from the basketball-shooting data, no significant evidence has been found to reject the simple binomial model. The present study raises concerns about the statistical methods used to support this claim. It is argued that nonstationarity may manifest as a residual effect when the changes in shooting accuracy are interrupted by activities such as shot selection and defense effort. Reanalyses of the field goal data from the earlier study showed that the serial correlation varied substantially between positive ("hot hand shooting") and negative ("over-alternation shooting"). In addition, a nested model comparison revealed that when a player's shooting accuracy fluctuated substantially in a short period of time, it was unlikely to be detected by the binomial model. Our results suggest that paying special attention to streak patterns in the hot hand belief may be an adaptive strategy in detecting changes in the environment.
Beliefs about the "hot hand" in basketball across the adult life span
Many people believe in streaks. In basketball, belief in the "hot hand" occurs when people think a player is more likely to make a shot if they have made previous shots. However, research has shown that players' successive shots are independent events. To determine how age would impact belief in the hot hand, we examined this effect across the adult life span. Older adults were more likely to believe in the hot hand, relative to younger and middle-aged adults, suggesting that older adults use heuristics and potentially adaptive processing based on highly accessible information to predict future events.
The Hot Hand in Basketball: Fallacy or Adaptive Thinking? The Hot Hand as Fallacy
In basketball, players believe that they should "feed the hot hand," by giving the ball to a player more often if that player has hit a number of shots in a row. However, analyzed basketball players' successive shots and showed that they are independent events. Thus the hot hand seems to be a fallacy. Taking the correctness of their result as a starting point, I suggest that if one looks at the hot hand phenomena from Gigerenzer & Todd's (1999) adaptive thinking point of view, then the relevant question to ask is does belief in the hot hand lead to more scoring by a basketball team? By simulation I show that the answer to this question is yes, essentially because streaks are predictive of a player's shooting percentage. Thus belief in the hot hand may be an effective, fast and frugal heuristic for deciding how to allocate shots between member of a team.
Hot hand belief and hot hand behavior: A comment on Koehler and Conley
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2004
In our comment on findings on the "hot hand" belief, we want to emphasize the different conclusions that can be drawn from their results by applying the concept of ecological rationality. The choice of environmental contexts and structures imposes constraints on possible interpretations of the results obtained. Differentiating between the cognitive and behavioral levels of the phenomenon seems analytically useful, particularly if practical recommendations to professionals are to be made. The implications of Koehler and Conley's data, new evidence, and the relationship between the perceived streaks of players and their base rates are discussed with the aim of developing empirically founded recommendations to professionals in sports, especially in real game situations.
Hot Hands in Basketball and Equilibrium
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008
Behavioral economics casts doubt on the rationality of economic agents using laboratory experiments. A notable exception to the reliance on laboratory data are studies that examine "hot hands" (HH) in professional basketball. According to the HH belief, players enjoy periods in which they perform better than usual. Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985) show, however, that actual success rates are independent of past performance, which they interpret as evidence that HH is a costly cognitive illusion. We argue that this interpretation ignores concurrent changes in team behavior when a player is HH. Accounting for these changes may reverse the predictions and conclusions regarding HH.
Memory & cognition, 2015
In this study, we examined perceptions of binary sequences under uncertainty in an attempt to depict a holistic and unifying framework. The first experiment applied a projection method that motivated participants to observe binary series and provide descriptions of their possible underlying mechanisms or processes. This procedure revealed four distinct perceptual categories: two previously studied categories of chance mechanisms and human performance, associated with the gambler's and hot-hand fallacies, and two newly identified categories-periods and processes and traits and preferences. The next three experiments tested the associations between the four categories and the alternation rates of the observed sequences under three categorical decisions structures: screening, discrimination, and classification. The results reveal the relativity of binary sequence perception. They show that the categories of chance mechanisms and periods and processes reflected rather stable percept...
The effect of perceived streakiness on the shot-taking behaviour of basketball players
European journal of sport science, 2014
We examine behavioural changes of basketball players arising from the hot-hand belief and use data of 1216 National Basketball Association games to measure the effect of cold and hot streaks on three proxies of shot difficulty. We find that the more consecutive shots players make (miss), the more difficult (easier) shots become along the three dimensions. Furthermore, most players' performance seems to improve during hot streaks because they attempt more difficult shots while no significant decrease in shooting accuracy takes place. This might explain why most previous studies could not find empirical evidence for the hot-hand belief in basketball when considering in-game field goal shooting.