Referees award more points when they see red

[Whitefire]

New Scientist just sent me an e-mail entitled

Referees award more points when they see red, thought it should generate some discussion.

Article here

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14292


Anyone else have an opinion, feeling or otherwise?

[JCM]

New Scientist just sent me an e-mail entitled

Referees award more points when they see red, thought it should generate some discussion.

Article here

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14292


Anyone else have an opinion, feeling or otherwise?

Interesting, what really got my attention was the sensors. I have never heard of martial arts competitors wearing those, but there are some articles on them, it seems more a research topic than anything else, or is it?

I think there might be something to the red tatsuki, now that I think about it the player wearing the red one tends to get my attention over white

[H.Sandsleth]

Rob Redmond discusses the effect of different colors (uniforms) in this article: http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2007/09/30/the-sport-karate-uniform-enhancing-the-competitive-edge/

Regarding the color red, he mentions the following: "Furthermore, investigation into the psychological impact of the color red has shown that the benefit does not come solely through a bystander perception of increased aggression, but rather as a distractor causing a slightly diminished reaction time in an opponent. (Interestingly, this diminished reaction time was only observed in males, correlating to theories that the psychological basis is rooted in evolutionary behavioral traits.)"

Personally I doubt that wearing a red ribbon, red tenugui etc will have any effect on the competitors or judges..it is just too little red. But there is no way of determining it for sure without statistics.

[kenwakokoro]

If the shimpan are properly maintaining their positions (in general an isosceles triangle with the sight lines from fukushin to shushin through the respective competitors' kotes), the red tasuki will be visible to one fukushin and maybe the shushin. This should result in less bias than what was proposed in the New Scientist article.

Perhaps a comparable study for kendo would be to study the shiai results of similarly ranked (and skilled) competitors wearing red and black dos. A round robin format with each competitor wearing red and black do's (50%/50% of the time) could give statistics to determine any systemic bias.

[Inner_Silence]

hmmm interesting... anyway I think that thne posibility for that to happen is really low or none for the reasons mentiones above. I won der if it happens the same in blue v/s white, that would definetily be important in kendo if there is any difference...


in the other hand... is another excuse to buy the red bogu... ha!

[Welshy]

I knew there was a reason I always do better with my red tenugui on! Phase two: The red hakama...

[Kenzan]

Yes, but what happens when they see the Wii girl? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v31qxrXsxv0)
I think more research needs to go to this neglected area.
preferably Government Funded.