The 'Quiet Eye' and motor performance in basketball free throw shooting

Abstract

Background and Study Aim. This study investigates expert and amateur basketball players' visual tracking strategies accuracy and inaccuracy free throws.
 Material and Methods. A total of 22 university student, 11 of whom were experts (n = 5 females, n = 6 males) and 11 amateurs (n = 5 females, n = 6 males), without visual impairment, participated the study. Each athlete performed a total of 10 throws. The normal distribution of data recorded in both accurate and inaccurate throws was checked with the Shapiro-Wilk test. All of the data received on accurate and inaccurate throws were analyzed by independent samples t-test.
 Results. Expert basketball players were recorded to have an average of 78% accurate throws out of 10, and as for amateur basketball players, they were recorded to have 34%. During accurate throws, the quiet eye durations of expert basketball players were identified as ~886ms, and quiet eye durations during inaccurate throws were as ~570ms. During accurate throws, the quiet eye durations of amateur basketball players were identified as ~612ms, and quiet eye durations during inaccurate throws were as ~388ms. The study's findings reveal that expert basketball players develop statistically longer quiet eye and fixation durations than amateur basketball players.
 Conclusion. The study's findings have supported the phenomenon of longer quiet eye durations during expert athletes' specific motor skills. The knowledge obtained from the study's findings is thought to have the utmost significance in identifying the quiet eye durations of expert basketball players and teaching their visual strategies to amateur level athletes to improve their performance.

Research of visual attention in basketball shooting: A systematic review with meta-analysis

“…More experienced and often more skilled basketball players exhibited a longer quiet eye period compared to less skilled players. 12,15,28,35,38 A longer duration of gaze fixation to the rim seems to be significant and was not only associated with better free throw performance but also with a higher three-point shooting percentage in the game. 37 Furthermore, a lower number of fixations was positively correlated with better shooting performance.…”

Visual Information in Basketball Jump-Shots: Differences between Youth and Adult Athletes

“…The fact that QE precedes the beginning of the movement, indicates that this last fixation is used to understand the action output (Gonzalez et al, 2017). The previous applies to sports including projectiles (e.g., golf, basketball) and QE was found to explain performance of experienced professionals in a vast range of shooting actions (Bjelica et al, 2020;Fegatelli et al, 2016;Giancamilli et al, 2022;Kanat et al, 2021). For example, a longer QE period seemed to be associated with better performance and skill acquisition (Vickers et al, 2019;Vine et al, 2013).…”