Enhanced temporal but not attentional processing in expert tennis players

Abstract

In tennis, as in many disciplines of sport, fine spatio-temporal resolution is required to reach optical performance. While many studies on tennis have focused on anticipatory skills or decision making, fewer have investigated the underlying visual perception abilities. In this study, we used a battery of seven visual tests that allowed us to assess which kind of visual information processing is performed better by tennis players than others athletics (triathletes) and non-athletes. We found that certain time-related skills, such as speed discrimination, are superior in tennis players compared to non-athletes and triathletes. Such tasks might be used to improve tennis performance in the future. © 2008 Overney et al.