Researchers from the Hebrew University found that the tendency of basketball players to throw three-pointers again after scoring a three-pointer is wrong

A new study reveals that learning from reinforcements can harm our decision-making process

Basketball fans around the world are familiar with the following scenario: a player from their favorite team hits a three-pointer during the game to the cheers of the crowd. A short time later, when the ball reaches his hands again while riding the waves of the success of his previous shot, the player tries to throw another shot from a distance. But does the fact that he scored the previous shot improve his chances of another successful shot?

The results of Dr. Yonatan Levinstein's research from the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Research (ELSC) and the Department of Neurobiology at the Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University shatter the myth that a player who hits one or more three-pointers "warms up the handle" and improves his chances of hitting the next three-pointers, and raises doubts about The ability of athletes in particular and people in general to predict their future success based on their past successes.

As part of a study designed to examine how people change their behavior following reinforcements that come in response to their actions, Dr. Levinstein and research student Tal Nieman followed for two years the shots from a distance (which award 3 points) and the shots from close range (which award 2 points) taken by 291 basketball players from the NBA and 41 female basketball players from the WNBA league. The two examined how shots or misses in a shot from a distance affect the player's behavior later in the game and found that after a successful shot, the chance that the next shot of the scoring player will also be a three-point shot increases significantly, and the time that passes until the next three-point shot is shortened. In other words, a successful shot from a distance is a positive reinforcement for the basketball player who concludes that he must continue to shoot from a distance also later in the game.

However, surprisingly, Nieman and Levinstein found that the relationship between consecutive shots is the opposite of what was expected and goes against the initial intuition of the players and the fans: a player who managed to hit a three-pointer is more likely to miss on the next shot and vice versa - a player who missed a three-pointer is more likely to succeed on his next three-pointer .

"The results of the study indicate that despite many years of intensive training, even the biggest and most experienced basketball stars fail to learn the desired generalizations in the game," notes Dr. Levinstein, whose research was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communication. "They are prone to overgeneralization, which causes them to act as if one shot is the law of the shots that will follow it, and they do not take into account that the situation in which they succeeded in the past may be different from the current situation."

The behavior of the basketball players shows the limitations of reinforcement learning, especially in a complex natural environment like a basketball court. "Reinforcement learning may not improve achievements and may even damage it if it is not based on an accurate model of the world," explains Dr. Levinstein and adds: "Reinforcement learning affects the behavior of all of us. Brokers decide on their investments according to the returns of their investments in the past and soldiers decide on their military moves according to the results of past battles. Awareness of the limitations of this type of learning may improve the decision-making processes of these and those, as well as the basketball players."