Differential contribution of visual and auditory information to accurately predict the direction and rotational motion of a visual stimulus

Abstract

Vision and auditory information are critical for perception and to enhance the ability of an individual to respond accurately to a stimulus. However, it is unknown whether visual and auditory information contribute differentially to identify the direction and rotational motion of the stimulus. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of an individual to accurately predict the direction and rotational motion of the stimulus based on visual and auditory information. In this study, we recruited 9 expert table-tennis players and used table-tennis service as our experimental model. Participants watched recorded services with different levels of visual and auditory information. The goal was to anticipate the direction of the service (left or right) and the rotational motion of service (topspin, sidespin, or cut). We recorded their responses and quantified the following outcomes: (i) directional accuracy and (ii) rotational motion accuracy. The response accuracy was the accurate predictions relative to the total number of trials. The ability of the participants to predict the direction of the service accurately increased with additional visual information but not with auditory information. In contrast, the ability of the participants to predict the rotational motion of the service accurately increased with the addition of auditory information to visual information but not with additional visual information alone. In conclusion, this finding demonstrates that visual information enhances the ability of an individual to accurately predict the direction of the stimulus, whereas additional auditory information enhances the ability of an individual to accurately predict the rotational motion of stimulus.

Training Level Does Not Affect Auditory Perception of The Magnitude of Ball Spin in Table Tennis

“…In contrast, our findings indicate that the number of correct answers of the sample did not occur by chance, as the number of correct answers (10.2 = 50.9%) was significantly higher than the number that could occur by chance (5 = 25%), considering that the possibility of a correct answer by chance was 1 in the 4 options (flat, slow, medium, fast) in each of the 20 attempts that the participants performed. Some factors may have contributed to the discrepancy between our results and those reported in the study by Park et al (2015 ). First, the strokes used in the studies were not the same.…”

“…The authors found that after adding auditory information to visual information, the ability of table tennis players to predict the type of spin of a service improved by 15%. However, the previous study presents a contradictory finding to ours, as it indicated that when the table tennis players received only auditory information (with no additional visual information), the ability to predict the direction or spin of a service was not significantly different from chance ( Park et al, 2015 ). In contrast, our findings indicate that the number of correct answers of the sample did not occur by chance, as the number of correct answers (10.2 = 50.9%) was significantly higher than the number that could occur by chance (5 = 25%), considering that the possibility of a correct answer by chance was 1 in the 4 options (flat, slow, medium, fast) in each of the 20 attempts that the participants performed.…”

“…In a recent study, Park et al (2015 ) pointed to the contribution of auditory perception in table tennis. The authors found that after adding auditory information to visual information, the ability of table tennis players to predict the type of spin of a service improved by 15%.…”

“…Another point that could be considered is that in the study by Park et al (2015 ) only experienced athletes were evaluated (over 10 years of practice in the modality). To better observe the role of experience in the auditory perception of the ball spin, the present study classified experience into different categories considering information on years of practice, age and hours of weekly training.…”

Machine learning based assessment of auditory threshold perception in human beings

“…This pattern improves with regular training of sports. Such subjects are aptly considered as positively conditioned subjects in the present experiment [10].…”