Padrão do movimento ocular de atletas de bocha paralímpica no lançamento de penalidade

Abstract

Introduction:The penalty shot in paralympic boccia is a very important situation that can be a tiebreaker in a group match, a promotion to an athlete to the next stage or even a definer to a paralympic medal winner. With the growing demand for better results in competitions, technical teams have used new technological resources to evaluate their athletes. Eye tracking technology can provide important information about the dynamics and mechanisms of cognitive processing time.Objective: Evaluate the ocular pattern of paralympic boccia athletes in penalty shots. Methodology: Transversal study over convenience sampling, for a descriptive qualitative analysis of evaluation tests using SMI Eye Tracking Glasses (SensoMotoric Instruments GmbH, Germany) with acquisition frequency of 60Hz. 34 paralympic boccia players participated in this study. They were divided in two groups (G1 and G2): G1 had 20 athletes with experience only in regional competitions and G2 had 14 athletes with national and/or international experience. The data normality test used was the Shapiro-Wilk test, all of the data was nonparametric and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the two groups. The statistic significance was defined as p<0,05. Results: Results showed a different ocular pattern in the time to achieve a visual focus between G1 and G2. When associating ocular patterns and shot performance it was observed that G2 had a higher frequency of focus in a smaller time frame and had a higher accuracy between the AOIs than G1. Conclusion: Athletes who participate in national competitions have a greater number of visual fixations in less time and better use during penalty shots when compared to athletes who participate only in regional competitions, confirming the hypothesis that more skilled athletes perform fewer fixations visual when compared to less skilled athletes.