Associate Professor Linfield University McMinnville, Oregon, United States
Abstract Details:
Background: Stroboscopic vision training (SVT) is the practice of placing individuals under conditions of intermittent vision, often using specialized eyewear, in an attempt to enhance visual and perceptual skills.
Purpose: To determine if SVT induces both acute and retentive visuomotor benefits in comparison to athletes’ baseline scores of cognitive abilities related to sport.
Methods: NCAA Division III female lacrosse players (n = 16) were recruited to participate in the study. All participants completed a pre-test battery assessing visuomotor skills including reaction time, depth perception, perceptual awareness, and eye-hand coordination using a sensorimotor station (Senaptec, Beaverton, OR). Participants were randomly assigned into two groups: a control group (n = 10) and SVT group (n = 6); from there, athletes completed a 2-week sport-specific vision training program, 4 sessions per week. Upon completion of the 2-week training period, all participants completed a post-test assessing the same visuomotor skills as pre-test. In addition, after one-week of inactivity following the post-test, athletes then completed the visuomotor tests again to assess if there were retentive qualities from training.
Results: The SVT group displayed statistically significant improvements from pre-test to retention test in perceptual awareness accuracy, and statistically significant regressionsfrom pre to posttest eye-hand accuracy (p < 0.05).Despite the small sample size, SVT group displayed observable trends towards improvement in reaction time from pre to post (p = 0.067), as well as positive trends towards perceptual accuracy pre to post (p = 0.088).
Conclusion: The results and trends from this study support previous vision training research in that SVT acutely produces visuomotor benefits. Retentive benefits of SVT were backed by one statistically significant change in perceptual accuracy from pre to retention test.Future research should include a larger sample size and extend training to 4-weeks to determine if longer training cycles have a greater influence on athletes’ ability to retain visual cognitive abilities.PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Sports performance professionals may use SVT to acutely enhance visuomotor and cognitive performance in their athletes.
