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Visual-sensory, visual-motor abilities help predict baseball performance
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Visual-sensory and visual-motor abilities are significant predictors of on-field performance for baseball players, according to a study, and may provide new parameters for player scouting.
The study used the Nike Sensory Stations to quantitatively evaluate visual and motor skills in 252 professional baseball players: 141 batters and 111 pitchers. Data were then compared with game statistics to evaluate the correlation of sensorimotor skills with the athletes’ performance.
Sensorimotor tests included visual-sensory abilities, such as the ability to see fine details at distance; depth perception and contrast sensitivity; and visual-motor skills, such as reaction time, eye-hand coordination and the ability to remember and recreate visual patterns. Game statistics were also split into several parameters, such as the ability of the player to reach base, to draw walks, to strike out and to hit for power.
Several significant correlations were found. The ability to remember and recreate visual patterns showed a strong association with an increased ability to reach base. Eye-hand coordination and reaction time were associated with an increased ability to draw walks, and superior performance on tasks involving spatial recognition and memory were associated with increased ability to avoid strikeouts.
“The current findings provide novel evidence of the importance of these abilities towards on-field achievement,” the authors noted.
They discussed ways of using them to improve baseball performance, implementing, for instance, specific sports vision training programs, using digital technologies that train general visual, perceptual and cognitive skills critical for sporting performance.
“Findings from the paper indicate that it is possible to evaluate visual-motor abilities using a brief battery of tasks and to infer from this battery how people will perform in highly demanding visual situations such as baseball batting,” study author Greg Applebaum, PhD, told Primary Care Optometry News.
“This finding, therefore, opens the door for such tools to be used for scouting prospects and for devising training programs aimed at improving the critical abilities that link vision to on-field performance,” he said. – by Michela Cimberle
Disclosure: The authors reported no conflict of interest
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