The relation between perception and action is crucial for understanding the motor activity control. An appropriate perceptual acquisition of the external environment is extremely important to perform the most adequate movement correctly (Nicoletti, 1992). Although visual input seems to prevail on other modalities, even the other senses provide important information to the athletes. The auditory system, for example, can provide additional information about the movements temporal pattern (Keele & Summer, 1976) and, therefore, it provides the athlete with important anticipatory information about the opponent’s action. In particular, this is true for racket sports, where the sound produced by the hit with the ball can provide experienced players with cues regarding the depth and the spin of the ball (Button, 2002). The present work is aimed to study the influence of perceptual processes in sports, in particular, it is focused on the role of the acoustic information in responding to the service. To study this aspect, as found in the previous literature (Takeuchi, 1993; Mead & Drowatzky, 1997), the sensorial deprivation method was used. Two experiments have been performed. Data from the first experiment revealed a surprising result, conflicting with the previous literature (Takeuchi, 1993; Mead & Drowatzky, 1997), since we found one subject who improved her performance under the acoustic deprivation condition. We hypothesized that the reason why this athlete performed better is that she takes advantage to be isolated from environmental noise. In the second experiment, we focused on the this latter subject and it emerged that under the sound condition the accuracy is similar to that one we found under deprivation condition, whilst the action time goes back approximately to the baseline level. This can be due to the fact that she no longer anticipates the movements because, receiving through the headphones the acoustic information regarding the sound produced by the contact between the racket and the ball, she does not need to counterbalance the lack of acoustic information as it is necessary under complete acoustic deprivation condition.
THE IMPORTANCE OF AUDITORY INFORMATION IN RETURNING THETENNIS SERVICE.
GALMONTE, Alessandra;
2009-01-01
Abstract
The relation between perception and action is crucial for understanding the motor activity control. An appropriate perceptual acquisition of the external environment is extremely important to perform the most adequate movement correctly (Nicoletti, 1992). Although visual input seems to prevail on other modalities, even the other senses provide important information to the athletes. The auditory system, for example, can provide additional information about the movements temporal pattern (Keele & Summer, 1976) and, therefore, it provides the athlete with important anticipatory information about the opponent’s action. In particular, this is true for racket sports, where the sound produced by the hit with the ball can provide experienced players with cues regarding the depth and the spin of the ball (Button, 2002). The present work is aimed to study the influence of perceptual processes in sports, in particular, it is focused on the role of the acoustic information in responding to the service. To study this aspect, as found in the previous literature (Takeuchi, 1993; Mead & Drowatzky, 1997), the sensorial deprivation method was used. Two experiments have been performed. Data from the first experiment revealed a surprising result, conflicting with the previous literature (Takeuchi, 1993; Mead & Drowatzky, 1997), since we found one subject who improved her performance under the acoustic deprivation condition. We hypothesized that the reason why this athlete performed better is that she takes advantage to be isolated from environmental noise. In the second experiment, we focused on the this latter subject and it emerged that under the sound condition the accuracy is similar to that one we found under deprivation condition, whilst the action time goes back approximately to the baseline level. This can be due to the fact that she no longer anticipates the movements because, receiving through the headphones the acoustic information regarding the sound produced by the contact between the racket and the ball, she does not need to counterbalance the lack of acoustic information as it is necessary under complete acoustic deprivation condition.
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