Despite the robust research on the value of the quiet eye, several gaps in current knowledge exist regarding the mechanism of the quiet eye effect.

There is mounting research to suggest that cognitive and motor expertise is more resistant to age-related decline than more general capacities. The authors investigated the retention of skills in medium-aged skilled (n = 14) and older-aged skilled (n = 7) athletes by comparing them with medium-aged less skilled (n = 15) and older-aged less skilled (n = 15) participants. Participants performed basketball free throws and dart throws as a transfer task under standardized conditions. Motor performance (accuracy) and perceptual performance (quiet eye) were examined across the four groups. There were significant differences between skill groups and age groups in throwing accuracy on both throwing tasks. Skilled players outperformed less skilled and medium-aged players outperformed older-aged players in basketball and dart throws. There were no significant differences in quiet eye duration across the skill or age groups in either task. These results indicate expertise in a perceptual motor task such as the basketball free throw can be retained in older athletes and that present models of skill maintenance should be re-evaluated to consider the issue of transfer.

There is little research investigating the maintenance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in general and even less comparing coaches of different ages. The aim of this study was to test for perceptual-cognitive differences between age groups, licence levels, and their interaction. This study investigated differences in skilled performance between young and middle-aged coaches of three different skill levels. Participants performed an accuracy-oriented pattern recall (mean distance in pixel) and a time-oriented flicker test (mean detection time in ms). There were some significant differences between age groups and between skill groups for both tests, but no interactions. For the pattern recall test, the effect sizes were larger for skill level differences, while for the flicker test effects were larger for ageing. These results suggest coaches are able to maintain accuracy skills better than reaction timed tasks. This is in line with findings on speeded performance in general populations, which show declines with age. Moreover, results also support findings on perceptual expertise in skills where accuracy was important.

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