Search

PURPOSE The main purpose of this study was to examine the difference in visual search strategies based on the skill level in success and failure cases in badminton short serves. METHODS To this end, six badminton experts (experience: more than 10 years) and six novices (less than 1 years) participated. The participants’ eye movement was recorded during each trial, and mean fixation duration, mean saccade amplitude, percentage of viewing time on each fixation location, final fixation duration, and gaze entropy were analyzed. RESULTS First, the mean fixation duration did not differ significantly, but the mean saccade amplitude increased when expert players failed to perform the serve successfully. Second, the percentage of viewing time on each location results showed that the overall viewing time was lower when the performance was unsuccessful, and the expert players fixated longer time viewing the net and space when they made a successful serve. Third, expert players showed longer QE than novice players when they made a successful serve. Finally, the gaze entropy results showed that expert players showed greater gaze entropy during successful performance, indicating that the gaze pattern was randomly distributed across trials. CONCLUSIONS When learning a badminton serve, we should fully recognize and explore the receiver’s location and external environment, and subsequently, before initiating serve movement, focus on the net or space between the receiver’s racquet and shoulders to make a more successful performance. In addition, we should make various patterns of the visual search strategy, rather than the fixed or consistent search strategy, to deceive receivers.

PURPOSE The quiet eye (QE) is defined as the final fixation time that is a specific target prior to initiating movement. This study aimed to identify the cause of QE in golf putting and to present an efficient practice method for improving putting skills. METHODS Thirty participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Each group practiced golf putting in different ways for two days. RESULTS The QE group showed a significant difference in putting scores, which was higher than that of the control group. The visual-occlusion group showed no difference compared to the other groups in terms of putting scores. The QE group showed a significant difference in terms of QE in the retention and competition tests compared to the pretest. The control group tended to have a slightly longer QE in competition tests compared to the pretest. The visualocclusion group showed no statistically significant difference in QE based on the period. All three groups had significantly longer swing times over the selected period. There was no significant difference in terms of the alpha power of the occipital lobe based on group and period. CONCLUSIONS The position of the visual-occlusion group became stable. However, the QE did not lengthen. The QE group had a longer QE. Furthermore, the control group that practiced with their eyes open tended to have longer QE. Therefore, QE may be related to visual-based cognitive processing rather than posturalkinematics. Finally, this study proved that QE practice is a more efficient method for novices in golf putting.