Effects of Viewer-Induced Arousal on Depth Perception in Male and Female Athletes

Abstract

Previous research findings showed that increasing the arousal levels to specific extents improve the performance and beyond that decreases the performance levels. The purpose of present study was to determine the effect of viewers on increasing arousal and its impact on the athletes’ depth perception. Participants of this study include 58 athletes from Iranian University students (23 female and 35 male with mean age of 23/3 and standard deviation of 2/16). The sport competitive anxiety test (SCAT) was performed to evaluate the level of participants’ arousal. Moreover, the instrument to test the depth perception was the electrical examiner of depth perception (122B). Participants performed the examinations under two motivational environments (with viewer and without viewer). The results of paired t-test showed significant difference between athletes scores in depth perception test under two motivational environments at 0/05 significance level. In other words, participants in high arousal environment (i.e. in presence of viewers) had inaccurate estimation of depth perception. This effect was same in both genders. The results of this study indicated that participants in high arousal environment pay attention to different information resources or different peripheral cues which cause to an inaccurate depth estimation.