Would a Layup be a Better Decision, from Pitt T. Maner III
Downtown Freddie Brown, Bird, Reggie Miller, et al. would have kept shooting 3s, but would a layup have been the better decision?
Here we show, using the sequences of field goal attempts made by professional basketball players, that the outcome of even a single field goal attempt has a considerable effect on the rate of subsequent 3 point shot attempts, in line with standard models of reinforcement learning. However, this change in behavior is associated with negative correlations between the outcomes of successive field goal attempts. These results indicate that despite years of experience and high motivation, professional players overgeneralize from the outcomes of their most recent actions, which leads to decreased performance.