TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessing ocular activity during performance of motor skills using electrooculography

AU - Gallicchio, Germano

AU - Cooke, Andrew

AU - Ring, Christopher

N1 - Economic and Social Research Council (grants PTA‐026‐27‐2696 and ES/J50001X/1)

PY - 2018/7

Y1 - 2018/7

N2 - Eye-tracking research has revealed that, compared to novices, experts make longer ocular fixations on the target of an action when performing motor skills, that is they have a longer quiet eye. Remarkably, the reason why a longer quiet eye aids movement has yet to be established. There is a need for interdisciplinary research and new measures to accelerate progress on the mechanistic understanding of the phenomenon. With the aim to provide researchers with new tools, we assessed the utility of electrooculography (EOG) to examine ocular activity while 10 experts and 10 novices putted golf balls. We measured quiet eye durations, distinguishing its pre- and postmovement initiation components, and developed a novel time-varying index of ocular activity, eye quietness, computed as the variability of the EOG in short time intervals: lower values correspond with greater quietness. Finally, we measured movement durations using a combination of infrared and sound sensors. Experts had longer postmovement initiation quiet eye compared to novices; however, total and premovement quiet eye durations did not differ between groups. Eye quietness was inversely correlated with quiet eye duration, and was greatest immediately after movement initiation. Importantly, movement duration correlated positively with postmovement initiation quiet eye and negatively with eye quietness shortly after movement initiation. This study demonstrates the utility of assessing ocular activity during performance of motor skills using EOG. Additionally, these findings provide evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics (e.g., movement duration) of how experts and novices execute motor skills.

AB - Eye-tracking research has revealed that, compared to novices, experts make longer ocular fixations on the target of an action when performing motor skills, that is they have a longer quiet eye. Remarkably, the reason why a longer quiet eye aids movement has yet to be established. There is a need for interdisciplinary research and new measures to accelerate progress on the mechanistic understanding of the phenomenon. With the aim to provide researchers with new tools, we assessed the utility of electrooculography (EOG) to examine ocular activity while 10 experts and 10 novices putted golf balls. We measured quiet eye durations, distinguishing its pre- and postmovement initiation components, and developed a novel time-varying index of ocular activity, eye quietness, computed as the variability of the EOG in short time intervals: lower values correspond with greater quietness. Finally, we measured movement durations using a combination of infrared and sound sensors. Experts had longer postmovement initiation quiet eye compared to novices; however, total and premovement quiet eye durations did not differ between groups. Eye quietness was inversely correlated with quiet eye duration, and was greatest immediately after movement initiation. Importantly, movement duration correlated positively with postmovement initiation quiet eye and negatively with eye quietness shortly after movement initiation. This study demonstrates the utility of assessing ocular activity during performance of motor skills using EOG. Additionally, these findings provide evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics (e.g., movement duration) of how experts and novices execute motor skills.

KW - EOG

KW - Quiet Eye

KW - Ocular behavior

KW - Golf putting

KW - Eye Quietness

UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1111%2Fpsyp.13070&file=psyp13070-sup-0001-suppinfos1.pdf

U2 - 10.1111/psyp.13070

DO - 10.1111/psyp.13070

M3 - Article

VL - 55

JO - Psychophysiology

JF - Psychophysiology

SN - 1469-8986

IS - 7

M1 - e13070

ER -