Stereopsis in Sports: Visual Skills and Visuomotor Integration Models in Professional and Non-Professional Athletes

Abstract

Visual skills in sport are considered relevant variables of athletic performance. However, data on the specific contribution of stereopsis-as the ability to perceive depth-in sport performance are still scarce and scattered in the literature. The aim of this review is therefore to take stock of the effects of stereopsis on the athletic performance, also looking at the training tools to improve visual abilities and potential differences in the visuomotor integration processes of professional and non-professional athletes. Dynamic stereopsis is mainly involved in catching or interceptive actions of ball sports, whereas strategic sports use different visual skills (peripheral and spatial vision) due to the sport-specific requirements. As expected, professional athletes show better visual skills as compared to non-professionals. However, both non-professional and professional athletes should train their visual skills by using sensory stations and light boards systems. Non-professional athletes use the visual inputs as the main method for programming motor gestures. In contrast, professional athletes integrate visual information with sport expertise, thus, they encode the match (or the athletic performance) through a more complex visuomotor integration system. Although studies on visual skills and stereopsis in sports still appear to be in their early stages, they show a large potential for both scientific knowledge and technical development.

Keywords: athletic performance; depth perception; sport expertise; sport vision.

Figure 1

Representative models of baseball (A) and tennis (B) fields, players, and match development. The arrows indicate the visual burden: (A) the two-way arrows between the pitcher and the batter show the mutual visual focus before and during the throw action of pitcher; the outfield players wait for the throw development (arrows directed from outfield players to the pitcher); (B) the visual burden is limited to the ball and the opponent’s movements (both arrows from the player directed to the ball and the opponent).

Figure 2

Representative models of soccer (A) and volleyball (B) fields, players, and game development. The blurred ray panels (A,B) show the visual focus (vison in depth) of players; the red arrows show the visual focus of strikers on the ball.

Figure 3

Proposed scheme of visuomotor integration model in professional panel (A) and non-professional panel (B) athletes. (A) Visual input and skills are integrated with motor control and sport expertise in professional athletes. (B) Visual abilities are the main component by which non-professionals compensate for the absence of sport experience in the programming of motor gestures. The blurred ray identifies the visual focus of athletes.