Lost in the Lights: The Effects of Glare on Catching Performance.

It has long been observed that glare produced by bright external light sources can impair sports performance, however, empirical research on this topic is limited. The goals of the present study were to investigate the effects of glare on catching performance and to determine to what extent these effects could be predicted by clinical tests of vision. College baseball players caught balls varying in both speed and direction. Glare was produced by a spotlight above the ball with glare magnitude varied by changing the angle subtended by the ball and the glare source. Three glare angles (12, 15 and 18 deg) were compared to a no glare condition. At 12 deg, the presence of glare produced both delayed reaction times and spatial and temporal errors in catching, while only the errors occurred for larger glare angles. Glare susceptibility assessed using a low contrast visual acuity test significantly correlated with catching performance in only 3 out of 7 conditions in which significant effects of glare on catching were found. The presence of glare can produce problems both in detecting an approaching object and in judging its trajectory and time of arrival. Clinical vision tests will have limited effectiveness for evaluating glare interventions. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.

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