Eye Movements and the Selection of Optical Information for Catching

The direction of gaze during a single-ball throwing and catching task was analyzed to generate hypotheses regarding the optical information that participants used. Five intermediate and 5 expert jugglers threw and caught a single ball continuously with 1 hand while wearing a head-mounted eye tracker to monitor their direction of gaze. Participants were instructed to throw the ball at 3 self-paced frequencies: preferred, one half of preferred, and twice preferred. Analysis of the digital eye tracker data along with the video recording of the ball and hand revealed that all participants viewed the ball at or around the ball's zenith. Intermediates varied only the mean phase of viewing across frequencies. Experts, however, varied the initiation of viewing, the point of minimum gaze to ball distance, the mean viewing phase, and the mean time between viewing and catching across frequencies. Both groups initiated the final downward movement of the hand toward the catch 89 msec after the ball's zenith. The implications of these results for the optical information for catching and expertise in a perceptual-motor task are discussed.

[1]  M. Fleury,et al.  Expertise Differences in Preparing to Return a Tennis Serve: A Visual Information Processing Approach , 1989 .

[2]  H T Whiting.  An operational analysis of a continuous ball throwing and catching task. , 1970, Ergonomics.

[3]  H. Whiting,et al.  Visual occlusion factors in a discrete ball-catching task. , 1974, Journal of motor behavior.

[4]  J. Starkes.  Skill in Field Hockey: The Nature of the Cognitive Advantage , 1987 .

[5]  R. Bootsma,et al.  On the information-based regulation of movement: What Wann (1996) may want to consider , 1997 .

[6]  J. Wann.  Anticipating arrival: is the tau margin a specious theory? , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[7]  Howard Austin.  A computational theory of physical skill , 1976 .

[8]  Ian M. Cockerill,et al.  Vision and sport , 1981 .

[9]  G. J. Savelsbergh,et al.  Grasping tau. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  Constance S. Royden.  In Defense of “Gravity as a Monocular Cue for Perception of Absolute Distance and/or Absolute Size” , 1994, Perception.

[11]  J T Todd,et al.  Visual information about moving objects. , 1981, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[12]  C. M. Jones,et al.  Use of advance cues in predicting the flight of a lawn tennis ball , 1978 .

[13]  R J Bootsma,et al.  Visual information about time-to-collision between two objects. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[14]  P. Beek,et al.  Learning the cascade juggle: a dynamical systems analysis. , 1992, Journal of motor behavior.

[15]  David N. Lee,et al.  A Theory of Visual Control of Braking Based on Information about Time-to-Collision , 1976, Perception.

[16]  Peter J. Beek,et al.  Phasing and the Pickup of Optical Information in Cascade Juggling , 1994 .

[17]  E. Gibson.  Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development , 1969 .

[18]  Eric L. Amazeen,et al.  Timing the Selection of Information During Rhythmic Catching. , 1999, Journal of motor behavior.

[19]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[20]  J. M. Stephenson,et al.  Critical Time Intervals for Taking in Flight Information in a Ball-Catching Task , 1970 .

[21]  B. Abernethy,et al.  Advance cue utilisation by skilled cricket batsmen , 1984 .

[22]  H T Whiting.  Training in a continuous ball throwing and catching task. , 1968, Ergonomics.

[23]  B. Abernethy.  Visual search strategies and decision-making in sport. , 1991 .

[24]  M. Shank,et al.  Eye Movements While Viewing a Baseball Pitch , 1987 .

[25]  B. Abernethy,et al.  Expert-novice differences in an applied selective attention task. , 1987 .

[26]  H T Whiting,et al.  Exposure and occluded duration effects in a ball-catching skill. , 1974, Journal of motor behavior.