All football players scan and track the football and players on the pitch, however, we know some players react faster and are better at decision making, what is this difference and how is it trained?
Tracking a football or player requires focusing the attention on what is being tracked this can sometimes mean that other important information is lost. Scanning involves assessing the field to pull out information. Experts are better at decision making because they are able to pull out the important information to allow them to make that decision. A lot of studies highlight the fact that experts chunk information allowing them to see plays developing and also that it is the important information that they are picking up. These skills develop with experience but this doesn't always have to be physical experience and it should be possible to build upon their on the pitch experience with additional work where the players evaluate their performance at decision making.
Tracking a football or player requires focusing the attention on what is being tracked this can sometimes mean that other important information is lost. Scanning involves assessing the field to pull out information. Experts are better at decision making because they are able to pull out the important information to allow them to make that decision. A lot of studies highlight the fact that experts chunk information allowing them to see plays developing and also that it is the important information that they are picking up. These skills develop with experience but this doesn't always have to be physical experience and it should be possible to build upon their on the pitch experience with additional work where the players evaluate their performance at decision making.
I suggest you read the book "The bidirectional links between decision-making, perception and action". I hope will be useful to you (see link attached).
I think that the professor's Paul Taylor answer is very good. I just add the importance of contextual variables in this cognitive process. As pointed by a lot of authors, the cognitive processes don't happen in a serial way (step by step). They happen simultaneously, in a parallel way. This allow the player to search, process and make decisions at the same time, more efficiently.
http://www.academia.edu/315242/The_bidirectional_links_between_decision_making_perception_and_action
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