Transferability of visual search behaviour across different shot techniques in floorball

• Main Author: Neo, Xi
• Other Authors: -
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Science::General
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/153095
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Visual Search Behaviour (VSB), particularly the Quiet Eye (QE), is a perceptual skill mediating superior sports performance. Despite robust evidence of the effectiveness of VSB training in improving experts’ and novices’ sports performance, the transferability of VSB and QE across aiming tasks in the same domain remains unknown. Hence, this study investigated the similarity of VSB and QE characteristics across the drag, wrist and slap shots when used to score a goal in floorball. As the cognitive processing requirements are similar across domain-specific aiming tasks, quantity and duration of fixations, together with QE onset, offset and, duration, are hypothesised to transfer similarly across the three shots. Using the Dikablis 3.0 Glasses mobile eye tracker, the VSB of six national male floorball athletes with competitive floorball experience of 12.8±1.6 years were recorded as they performed 30 successful goals, 10 for each type of shot, in a pre-determined randomised order. One-way ANOVA revealed non-significant differences (p ≥.82) in all variables except QE onset (p =.031), indicating inter-tasks transferability of VSB and QE to a certain extent. Significant differences in QE onset lie between the drag (62.528±13.215) and wrist (53.885±19.552), which might suggest the existence of an optimal QE period that differs across the three shots. While this study provides some support of a generalised VSB training to improve accuracy across the three shots, more research is warranted to sustain these findings and develop relevant cues to fixate on during these interventions. Keywords: Visual search behaviour, Quiet Eye, Floorball