Comparison of the Saccadic Eye Movement Ability of Female Professional Basketball Players and Non-Athletes

Abstract

Athletes, particularly ball game players, benefit from focusing on fast-moving visual targets. In this study, we hypothesized that athletes, specifically professional basketball players, exhibit more accurate saccadic eye movements compared to non-athletes. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the eye movements of eight female professional basketball players from the Niigata Albirex BB (basketball player group) and compared them to eight sex-matched healthy volunteers from a previous study. Eye movements were measured using the Eye Score device. The visual target moved continuously for 20 s at a speed of 100 degrees/s in regular triangular wave-like movements horizontally. The subjects tracked the visual targets with maximum accuracy. The total amplitudes of evoked eye movements during tracking were 37.96 ± 0.82 for the basketball player group and 27.74 ± 2.55 deg (mean ± SEM) for the non-athlete group, indicating a significant difference. These findings suggest that basketball players may achieve accurate saccades by employing predictive saccades. The saccades of the basketball players were concentrated at the fifth frame (0.17 s after the onset of target motion), exhibiting a more peaked distribution than the normal curve. The results imply that athletes may execute predictive saccades when tracking targets with predictable movements, even outside of actual competition.