Visio-spatial skills in athletes: comparison of rugby players and non-athletes

Abstract

Research pertaining to the superiority of athletes’ visio-spatial expertise when compared to non-athletes is conflicting. This discrepancy may arise due to a superiority in athletes in only specific visio-spatial skills (VSS) and not all aspects of vision. The aim of this study was to discern whether rugby players have superior VSS/expertise in comparison to non-athletes, when comparing six visual skills (accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand–eye coordination). The participants underwent an optometric assessment, after which the VSS components of non-athletes and premier league rugby players were assessed by using six different existing tests namely; the Hart Near Far Rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and ball wall toss tests. A statistically significant (p ≤ .05) difference existed between rugby players and non-athletes for five out of the six tests. Conversely, no real evidence is shown that visual memory differs between rugby players and non- athletes (p = .599). This study found that rugby players have an enhanced accommodation facility, saccadic eye movements, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness and hand–eye coordination, but not visual memory, when compared to non-athletes. These findings of a superiority of rugby players in specific VSS have broad implications for theories of sport vision, how best to select tests and in the development of sport-specific VSS testing batteries.