Visual Search and Decision making accuracy of expert and novice Basketball referees

This study aims to draw a comparison of Visual Search Behavior and Decision Making accuracy among expert and novice Basketball referees. 38 male referees took part in the research and were divided into two groups of experts and novices (Each group consisting of 18 people). Participants took part in a video test (50 clips in 2 section) in which the number of fixation، average fixation duration and their decision making accuracy was registered through a Visual Search device. t- Test and effect size was used to compare results. results showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups in their decision making accuracy، but there is no significant difference in their number of fixation and average fixation duration. Expert referees may be able to extract more relevant decision making information from the same visual field as compared to the novice referees that will help to make more accurate decisions.