How Different Referee Modes Influence the Third-party Public Game Fair Perception:Mediation Based on Illusory Understanding and Moderation Based on Moral Understanding

With the development of artificial intelligence technology, as well as the media exposure of unfair referees in international sports games, more and more media and the public call for adopting AI referees to replace traditional referees. We selected the media materials in the 2018—2022 international games that involve the controversy between the AI referee and the traditional referee through two groups of experiments to verify the relevant assumptions. The results show that: The impact of AI referee on the thirdparty public game fair perception is significantly greater than that of traditional referee; the illusory understanding plays a part of mediating role between the different referees and the third-party public game fair perception; moral understanding has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between the main effects, that is, moral understanding inhibits the impact of AI referee on the third-party public game fair perception; on the contrary, moral understanding has enhanced the impact of traditional referee on the third-party public game fair perception.