Visual search strategies in badminton serve on expertise levels

Abstract

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in visual search strategies between expert and novice badminton players while performing badminton serve. [Method] To this end, expert (more than 10 years experience) and novice (less than 6 months experience) badminton players performed 15 trials of two types of serve (i.e., short-serve and long-serve), in total 30 trials. All the participants’ eye movement was recorded during each trial, and mean fixation duration, fixation distribution, final fixation duration and location, and gaze entropy were analyzed. [Results] The results showed that there was no difference in mean fixation duration between expert and novice players. The analysis of mean fixation duration on each location showed that participants fixated more on the net while doing short serve whereas fixated more on the space when they did long serve. In particular, expert players fixated more on the space while doing long serve than novice players, and fixated more on the net and racquet for the short serve. However, novice players fixated more on the location of shuttle would be landed. The final fixation duration was not different between expert and novice players. Further, expert players showed higher gaze entropy than novice players. [Conclusion] The findings indicate that expert players fixated more on the net for the short serve, and the space for the long serve, and visual search strategies of experts were more varied than novice players.