Study Offers New Insights into Baseball Batters' Visual Tracking Strategies

 Study Offers New Insights into Baseball Batters' Visual Tracking Strategies

A new study conducted by The Ohio State University College of Optometry offers new insights into the visual tracking strategies of baseball batters.

Researchers reportedly measured horizontal eye and head movements in two collegiate baseball players, who were facing balls thrown by a pitching machine. During one set of pitches the hitters did not swing at the pitch, while during the next series they tried to hit the pitched balls.

When the batters were not swinging, they reportedly used a similar visual strategy where mainly their heads moved toward the ball — not their eyes — for most of the time the ball was in the air, but then shifted their gaze ahead of the ball about 150 milliseconds before the ball arrived. Then when swinging, the batters reportedly followed a different visual strategy -- head movements toward the ball were substantially larger than eye movements, and the batters kept their "eyes on the ball" until about 50 milliseconds before it crossed the plate.

According to researchers, keeping gaze on the ball when swinging at the pitch may help enhance predictions of when and where the ball will arrive. And when not swinging, watching where the ball crosses the plate may provide useful information for swinging at future pitches.

The study was recently published in Optometry & Vision Science, the official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.

Click here to read the full press release.

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Source: Wolters Kluwer

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