Usage of Virtual Reality Technology to Study Reactions in Karate-Kumite

The aim of this paper is the presentation of a measurement station to determine the anticipation skills in combat sports. Therefore technologies of virtual reality (VR) are being used which create sports specific stimuli. An advantage of this measurement station is that stimuli are visually three dimensional and can be created standardized. Whereas a high immersion as well as a realistic three dimensional environment is a crucial requirement for a good VR the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) was selected. The participant’s reaction times of nine karate attacks presented in the CAVE, in front of a computer screen and a two dimensional screen were examined. The development of the virtual karate attacker was performed by creating a virtual character animated with motion capture data (VICON) from real karate attacks. It was determined that the participant’s reactions were more similar to reality than to reactions to the two dimensional screen. Based on these results it can be concluded that it is possible to perform tests which inherit temporal and special occlusion tasks as well as the integration of an eye-tracking-system in order to identify early and late cues. It is expected to be a helpful tool to examine the anticipation of athletes in a realistic way.