Skill Level, Vision, and Proprioception in Simple One-Hand Catching

Abstract

Two experiments examined the interaction of vision and articular proprioception in simple one-hand catching. In Experiment 1 (N = 18) skilled baseball and softball players used the left and right hands to catch slowly moving tennis balls, while Experiment 2 (N = 16) used novice catchers as subjects. In half the trials, sight of the catching hand was prevented by placing a screen alongside the subjects' face. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that the screen caused minimal disruption of the positioning phase of the catch, with moderate disruption of the grasping phase. However, for the unskilled subjects of Experiment 2, the screen caused considerable disruption of positioning. The data provide only minimal support for Smyth and Marriott' (1982) contention that limb position is inadequately specified by articular proprioception. It is argued that skill level serves as a mediator in the ability to use proprioception for limb positioning, but vision appears necessary to control the precise temporal organization of the grasp phase of one-hand catching.

Spatial and Temporal Adaptations That Accompany Increasing Catching Performance During Learning

“…Shifting the interception point more forward could have resulted in better catching performance in several ways. First, the catching hand was positioned more in the centralvision field, which may be beneficial for performance of nonexperts, as suggested in earlier studies (Fischman & Schneider, 1985;Savelsbergh & Whiting, 1988;Smyth & Marriott, 1982). A second aspect that may facilitate catching performance lies in the more comfortable catching-arm configuration that originates when people catch the ball more distantly (see Mazyn et al, 2006).…”

The coupling between point-of-gaze and ballmovements in three-ball cascade juggling: the effects of expertise, pattern and tempo

“…In other occlusion studies, however, removal of vision signi® cantly increased the movement time required by novices to cross a beam, whereas this manipulation had no eþ ect in expert gymnasts (Robertson et al, 1994). In a similar vein, Fischman and Schneider (1985) showed that preventing sight of the catching hand was less detrimental to performance in skilled catchers than in unskilled catchers.…”

Automated system for ball launching, visual occlusion, and data acquisition in a ball-hitting task

“…Other uses of the shutters include visual occlusion during pointing (e.g., Elliot & Allard, 1985;Paillard, 1982), hitting (e.g., DeLucia & Cochran, 1985;McLeod et al, 1985), catching (e.g., Fischman & Schneider, 1985;Whiting & Sharp, 1974), throwing (e.g., Eby & Loomis, 1987), or locomotion (Assaiante, Marchand, & Amblard, 1989;Elliot, 1986;Thomson, 1983) tasks to determine temporal and spatial aspects of the optic array important for perception and action.…”

“…The time required for light or dark adaptation between trials may pose difficulties for some experimental designs. Other research employed stationary obstacles that interfered with the observers' view of the flight path or of the effector (DeLucia & Cochran, 1985;Fischman & Schneider, 1985;McLeod et al, 1985;Smyth & Marriott, 1982). These methods required a design in which all the trials of one level of an independent variable were presented sequentially.…”