What the literature says about sports vision

Abstract

The demands on the visual system during athletic performance are among the most rigorous of any activity. Because vision influences the capacity of an athlete to perform the tasks of a sport, scientific research has been performed to investigate the link between skill and vision. Most research efforts have been directed toward identifying the visual skills necessary for sports and determining if the skills of athletes differ from those of nonathletes. These efforts, though incomplete, have suggested that certain visual skills are important to performance in selected sports and that the visual skills of athletes and nonathletes do differ. There is as yet a paucity of research to support the hypothesis that the visual skills of athletes can be enhanced by visual training and that enhanced visual skills will result in improved athletic performance. Additional research efforts are needed to answer the many intriguing questions posed by the relationship between vision and sports.