A critical analysis of the functional parameters of the quiet eye using immersive virtual reality

Abstract

Anchoring gaze to a target assists planning and control of visually-guided actions. In far aiming tasks, the quiet eye, an instance of peri-movement gaze anchoring, has been extensively studied as a key performance variable. However, theories of quiet eye are yet to establish the exact functional role of the location and duration of the fixation. The present work used immersive virtual reality to manipulate key parameters of the quiet eye – location (experiment 1) and duration (experiment 2) – to test competing theoretical predictions about their importance. Across two pre-registered experiments, participants (n=127) completed a series of golf putts while their eye movements, putting accuracy, and putting kinematics were recorded. In experiment 1, participants’ pre-movement fixation was cued to locations on the ball, near the ball, and far from the ball. In experiment 2, long and short quiet eye durations were induced using auditory tones as cues to movement phases. Linear mixed effects models indicated that manipulations of location and duration had little effect on performance or movement kinematics. The findings suggest that the spatial and temporal parameters of the final fixation may not be critical for movement pre-programming and may instead reflect attentional control or movement inhibition functions.

Does the Simon Effect Interfere with the Synergy Between Perception and Action?

“…Meanwhile a number of studies found positive relations to subsequent motor performance in field studies (e.g., Causer, et al., 2017) and experimental lab studies (e.g., Klostermann et al, 2018a; Sun et al., 2016). But opposite findings were also reported both in field (e.g., Walters-Symons et al., 2018) and lab studies (e.g., Harris et al., 2021; Klostermann, 2020).…”

“…The longer, – or the more optimal (e.g., Behan & Wilson, 2008; but see also Klostermann et al 2018a) – the QE duration, the better the visuo-motor system is thought to be attuned towards the goal of the current action (cf. Harris et al., 2021). Exactly this functionality was shown in the current study, as the conflict in response selection evoked by the Simon manipulation (cf., Hommel, 2019) required an optimization of the attentional processes, as indicated by the earlier onsets and longer QE durations, in the incompatible stimulus-response-mapping trials.…”

“…Derived from early theories on the QE’s functionality in movement preparation and control – some have addressed QE within a cognitive framework (e.g., Vickers, 1996; Williams et al., 2002) or a psycho-ecological framework (e.g., de Oliveira et al., 2008; Oudejans et al., 2002), while more recent theoretical assumptions have related the QE to attentional mechanisms (e.g., Klostermann et al., 2014; Vine et al., 2014), and to postural-control mechanisms (e.g., Gallicchio & Ring, 2019), respectively. Those recent efforts particularly resulted from the understanding that long QE durations in experienced athletes hardly can be explained with improved information processing over movement preparation and control (e.g., Flindall et al, 2020; Harris et al., 2021; Klostermann, 2020). Rather, among elite athletes, it is efficiency that is paramount, not longer information processing (cf.…”