When a sports performance is at its peak, it is akin to a musical performance in the sense that each player seems to perform their part effortlessly, creating a rhythmic flow of counterparts all moving as one. Rhythm and timing are vital elements in sports like basketball in which syncopated passing and shooting appear to facilitate accuracy. This study tests if shooting baskets “in rhythm,” as measured by the catch-to-release time, reliably enhances shooting accuracy. It then tests if an “in rhythm” timing is commonly detected and agreed upon by observers, and if observer timing ratings are related to shooting accuracy. Experiment 1 tests the shooting accuracy of two amateur basketball players after different delays between catching a pass and shooting the ball. Shots were taken from the three-point line (180 shots). All shots were recorded and analyzed for accuracy as a function of delay time, and the recordings were used to select stimuli varying in timing intervals for observers to view in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, 24 observers each reviewed 17 video clips of the shots to test visual judgment of shooting-in-rhythm. The delay times ranged from 0.3 to 3.2 seconds, with a goal of having some of the shots taken too fast, some close to in rhythm, and some too slow. Observers rated if each shot occurs too fast, in rhythm slightly fast, in rhythm slightly slow, or too slow. In Experiment 1, shooters exhibited a significant cubic fit with better shooting performance in the middle of the timing distribution (1.2 sec optimal delay) between catching a pass and shooting. In Experiment, 2 observers reliably judged shots to be in rhythm centered at 1.1 ± 0.2 seconds, which matched the delay that leads to optimal performance for the shooters found in Experiment 1. The pattern of findings confirms and validates that there is a common “in rhythm” catch-to-shoot delay time of a little over 1 second that both optimizes shooter accuracy and is reliably recognized by observers.

As the use of social media becomes more prevalent, especially in adolescents and young adults, there is a growing need to understand how social media use affects psychological well-being in the emerging adult population. Prior research has found that exposure to nature reduces stress and increases attention in comparison to urban environments, but nature has not been studied as a way to reduce the potentially negative effects of social media. The current study aimed to determine if viewing social media or nature for a brief time affected psychological well-being, social comparisons, future self-identification, and awe, and to test whether viewing nature scenes could buffer the effects of viewing social media. Data was collected from 275 participants using a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results showed that emerging adults exposed to nature scenes had significantly less negative affect compared to those exposed to their social media feeds. Exploratory analyses showed that those who spent more time outside tended to experience decreased negative affect when they viewed both social media and nature photos, but those who spent more time outside experienced increased negative affect when only viewing social media. Those who used social media more often generally experienced lower negative affect. Findings show that relations between humans, social media, and nature, are complex, and further research into these relations and their underlying causes may be beneficial.