Perceptual Information for Batting Can Be Extracted Throughout a Ball's Trajectory

Abstract

Studies of batters' eye movements have demonstrated that batters do not (or cannot) maintain fixation on the ball throughout its trajectory. In addition, the velocity of a pitched ball, together with the limitations of human reaction time, seems to imply that only the first portions of the ball's trajectory provide information to batters. We prevented nine experienced fast pitch softball players from viewing the ball during the first, middle, or last third of its trajectory and found that seeing the first third of the ball's trajectory is not as critical as had been thought: batters are very good at making do with whichever two-thirds of the ball's trajectory is visible. The results demonstrate the importance of peripheral vision and indicate that batters can extract perceptual information for batting throughout the flight of the ball.