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Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes

The present study aimed to compare the visual expertise of non-athletes (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 22.13 ± 2.37 years) to amateur, non-professional South-African Rugby Union (SARU) first-division club rugby players (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 23.88 ± 4.36 years; training age mean: 9.0 ± 1.5 y...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Millard, Lourens, Shaw, Ina, Breukelman, Gerrit Jan, Shaw, Brandon S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33665445
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06290
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author Millard, Lourens
Shaw, Ina
Breukelman, Gerrit Jan
Shaw, Brandon S.
author_facet Millard, Lourens
Shaw, Ina
Breukelman, Gerrit Jan
Shaw, Brandon S.
author_sort Millard, Lourens
collection PubMed
description The present study aimed to compare the visual expertise of non-athletes (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 22.13 ± 2.37 years) to amateur, non-professional South-African Rugby Union (SARU) first-division club rugby players (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 23.88 ± 4.36 years; training age mean: 9.0 ± 1.5 years). Research suggests that athletes have enhanced visio-spatial expertise in comparison to non-athletes. However, conflicting research suggests that this is not always the case as non-athletes possess similar visio-spatial expertise in certain visual skills. Participants underwent an optometric assessment after which the following 6 visio-spatial intelligence (VSI) components were measured; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand-eye coordination using the following tests; hart near far rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and ball wall toss tests. Results indicated that first-division rugby players performed significantly better (p ≤ 0.05) in five of the six tests performed, except for visual memory (p = 0.893). While this study substantiates the notion that athletes, in this case first-division rugby players, performs significantly better in most VSI components, this is not the case for all, as with visual memory in this study. To more accurately distinguish between athletes and non-athletes, research should move away from tests that focus on basic visual function and develop sport specific testing methods that can be used by a variety of sports.
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spelling pubmed-79007012021-03-03 Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes Millard, Lourens Shaw, Ina Breukelman, Gerrit Jan Shaw, Brandon S. Heliyon Research Article The present study aimed to compare the visual expertise of non-athletes (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 22.13 ± 2.37 years) to amateur, non-professional South-African Rugby Union (SARU) first-division club rugby players (n = 40; 19–35 years old; age: 23.88 ± 4.36 years; training age mean: 9.0 ± 1.5 years). Research suggests that athletes have enhanced visio-spatial expertise in comparison to non-athletes. However, conflicting research suggests that this is not always the case as non-athletes possess similar visio-spatial expertise in certain visual skills. Participants underwent an optometric assessment after which the following 6 visio-spatial intelligence (VSI) components were measured; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand-eye coordination using the following tests; hart near far rock, saccadic eye movement, evasion, accumulator, flash memory and ball wall toss tests. Results indicated that first-division rugby players performed significantly better (p ≤ 0.05) in five of the six tests performed, except for visual memory (p = 0.893). While this study substantiates the notion that athletes, in this case first-division rugby players, performs significantly better in most VSI components, this is not the case for all, as with visual memory in this study. To more accurately distinguish between athletes and non-athletes, research should move away from tests that focus on basic visual function and develop sport specific testing methods that can be used by a variety of sports. Elsevier 2021-02-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7900701/ /pubmed/33665445 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06290 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Research Article
Millard, Lourens
Shaw, Ina
Breukelman, Gerrit Jan
Shaw, Brandon S.
Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title_full Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title_fullStr Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title_full_unstemmed Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title_short Differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
title_sort differences in visio-spatial expertise between 1(st) division rugby players and non-athletes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33665445
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06290
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