Head, eye and arm coordination in table tennis

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the role of head, eye and arm movements during the execution of a table tennis forehand stroke. Three-dimensional kinematic analysis of line-of-gaze, arm and ball was used to describe visual and motor behaviour. Skilled and less skilled participants returned the ball to cued right or left target areas under three levels of temporal constraint: pre-, early- and late-cue conditions. In the pre- and early-cue conditions, both high and low skill participants tracked the ball early in flight and kept gaze stable on a location in advance of the ball before ball-bat contact. Skilled participants demonstrated an earlier onset of ball tracking and recorded higher performance accuracy than less skilled counterparts. The manipulation of cue condition showed the limits of adaptation to maintain accuracy on the target. Participants were able to accommodate the constraints imposed by the early-cue condition by using a shorter quiet eye duration, earlier quiet eye offset and reduced arm velocity at contact. In the late-cue condition, modifications to gaze, head and arm movements were not sufficient to preserve accuracy. The findings highlight the functional coupling between perception and action during time-constrained, goal-directed actions.

Methodological Review and Evaluation of Research in Expert Performance in Sport

“…There is evidence that in comparison to less skilled performers, skilled athletes maintain consistency in their search under anxiety manipulations (Rodrigues et al, 2002;Williams & Elliott, 1999). However, both novices and experts in karate have been found to focus more on peripheral body features under conditions of high stress, although this behavior was more pronounced in novices (Williams & Elliot, 1999).…”

“…Skilled and successful performers have shown a consistent visual gaze phenomenon, termed "quiet eye" (Vickers, 1996;Vickers & Adolphe, 1997). Accordingly, before an action is undertaken, such as a basketball free throw or jump shot (Oudejans et al, 2002;Vickers, 1996), a table-tennis serve (Rodrigues et al, 2002), or golf putt (Vickers, 1992), successful performers steady their gaze onto the target (such as the rim of the basketball net or the golf ball) just before executing the shot. The quiet eye period is believed to reflect cognitive processing activities that take place before the shot.…”

“…Measurement of response outcomes (i.e., speed and accuracy), and the processes underpinning this outcome (i.e., how a decision was reached), began with written or verbal responses (e.g., Starkes & Deakin, 1984), including more recent situational probability methods whereby participants are asked to indicate the probability of an event, such as the best passing option in soccer (e.g., Alain & Sarrazin, 1990;Ward & Williams, 2003). More recently, measurement has been accomplished via a key-press response connected to a reaction timer (e.g., 162 Sport Expertise Franks & Hanvey, 1997); a voice-activated timer (e.g., Starkes & Deakin, 1984); a joystick response, enabling a measure of response corrections as the action unfolds (e.g., Savelsbergh, Williams, van der Kamp, & Ward, 2002); ground reaction time pads interfaced with switches for full body movements (e.g., Ward, Williams, & Bennett, 2002); and real-time analysis of movement and live game scenarios (e.g., Bootsma & van Wieringen, 1990;Rodrigues, Vickers, & Williams, 2002). Thus, over the years, the stimuli as well as the response modes have generally increased in ecological validity, leading to more sensitive measures of expert-novice differences.…”

Adaptive Working Memory Training Reduces the Negative Impact of Anxiety on Competitive Motor Performance

“…Based on previous research investigating the QE in ball interception tasks (Rodrigues et al, 2002;Wilson et al, 2013) the QE period for the tennis volleying task was operationally defined as the final tracking gaze on the ball prior to the initiation of the forward swing of the racquet. A 13 tracking gaze was defined as a gaze sustained on the ball within 1° of visual angle for a minimum of 100 ms .…”

What information is being acquired during the period of Quiet Eye? Comment on Vickers

“…According to this general view, QE period would be under control of the ventral vision-for-perception system, mentally representing environmental information, and the motor action would be regulated by the dorsal vision-for-action system, within the three-dimensional space. For example, in a table tennis forehand stroke task, participants visually tracked the ball (QE) and stabilized eye and head around the time of ball-bat CISS 1 (2016) October 2016 I Article 112 I 3 contact; Milner and Goodale's model accommodate evidence from both early information acquisition to predict a ball's future trajectory and action planning, and late movement adjustments based on image expansion information (Rodrigues, Vickers, & Williams, 2002). Models of both Milner and Goodale (2008) and Corbeta et al (2008) characterize visual and attentional processing in the brain, which results in perceptuo-motor behaviors, such as QE.…”