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.