Fascinating: Basketball Empathy

Oh, so that explains why I'm no good at b-ball!

[The best basketball players] feel in their own arms and hands what other players are doing. According to a study released Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, that ability gives them a crucial edge in predicting whether a shot will go in, which in turn tells them whether they should start running down court or going in for a rebound.

What explains the superiority? According to measurements the scientists did of elite players’ brain activity, they had significantly greater activity in their own motor cortex—especially the region responsible for moving the hand and forearm—when they were watching someone else’s shot than non-players did. They felt the other guy's moves.

The players were especially accurate when they had to call “in” or “out” just when the ball left the shooter’s hand. That suggests that the prediction is not based on the ball’s trajectory—it doesn’t have one at this early stage—but on the shooter’s body posture and finger position. The best players “predicted the shot’s fate by reading the body kinematics,” the scientists write.

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