The Head Tracks and Gaze Predicts: How the World’s Best Batters Hit a Ball

Abstract

Hitters in fast ball-sports do not align their gaze with the ball throughout ball-flight; rather, they use predictive eye movement strategies that contribute towards their level of interceptive skill. Existing studies claim that (i) baseball and cricket batters cannot track the ball because it moves too quickly to be tracked by the eyes, and that consequently (ii) batters do not – and possibly cannot – watch the ball at the moment they hit it. However, to date no studies have examined the gaze of truly elite batters. We examined the eye and head movements of two of the world’s best cricket batters and found both claims do not apply to these batters. Remarkably, the batters coupled the rotation of their head to the movement of the ball, ensuring the ball remained in a consistent direction relative to their head. To this end, the ball could be followed if the batters simply moved their head and kept their eyes still. Instead of doing so, we show the elite batters used distinctive eye movement strategies, usually relying on two predictive saccades to anticipate (i) the location of ball-bounce, and (ii) the location of bat-ball contact, ensuring they could direct their gaze towards the ball as they hit it. These specific head and eye movement strategies play important functional roles in contributing towards interceptive expertise.

Color perception is impaired in baseball batters while performing an interceptive action

“…If this is the case, an improvement in color perception should be observed in experts at the point of bat-ball contact; however, the present findings did not indicate such an improvement. In addition, Land and McLeod (2000) found that a saccade occurred after the pursuit eye movement during the early phase of ball flight (see also Croft et al, 2010;Mann, Spratford, & Abernethy, 2013). In the present study, the CR reduction in baseball players had already occurred by early-phase ball flight.…”

“…One alternative factor may have been the limitation inherent in the visual tracking of task stimuli. Previous studies in fast-ball sports have demonstrated that batters cannot track the ball flight path until bat-ball contact during the batting act (Bahill & LaRitz, 1984;Hubbard & Seng, 1954;Land & McLeod, 2000;Mann et al, 2013). Thus, the participants in the present study may have been less proficient at detecting color change during late-phase interception because they were unable to track the target until the end of ball flight.…”

“…On the other hand, Mann et al (2013) recently suggested that this is not necessarily the case; rather, head tracking means that the ball could be foveated throughout the majority of ball flight, but instead saccades are still produced and probably serve some other function. In their study, as the ball approached the bat, the gaze of the skilled participants was ahead of the ball.…”

Consciousness and choking in visually-guided actions

“…When asked to indicate where they thought they were looking when presented with a series of images showing the flight-path of the ball coming towards them, the same player reported that his gaze was always directed towards the ball and that he could not recollect any times at which his gaze was not aligned with the ball. Similarly in a recent examination of the gaze behaviour of some of the world's best cricket batters, Mann et al (2013) found that the batters tended to move their gaze ahead of the ball towards the point where they anticipated their bat would make contact with the ball. Effectively this ensured that the batters could 'watch the ball onto the bat' when they made contact with the ball.…”

Does Visual Training Provide Competitive Advantage in the Perceived Stressful Situations of a Tennis Match?

“…In the twenty first century, several other researchers have devised alternative sport "visual" techniques-Mac Leod [13], Lafont [14][15][16][17], Vickers [18], Albernethy [19] which re-confirm the eye physical limits and stress out the necessity to focus on a sound cognitive vision strategy rather than sight skills.…”