Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#21

Post by tsumnia » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

d_a_robson wrote: post #14

hindsightRegret wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. The article makes it sound like training the "quiet eye", i.e. improving eye focus by X percent, will improve elite athlete traits of calmness and zone/flow. When cause/effect operating in the opposite direction is equally (if not more) likely.

Disclaimer - I wrote the article I'm genuinely interested in your point here, but doesn't the research on quiet eye training actually support this causal link? Lots of the studies showed that feedback on the athlete's eye movements does improve their accuracy, better than control interventions that did not explicitly teach the quiet eye.

As an aside, do you know of any research where eye movement is not possible? I'm thinking of sparring in grappling, where you can't see parts of your opponent's body because you literally can't move your head that way.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#22

Post by sreeramvenkat » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

This reminds me of story from Indian epic Mahabarata where Arjuna sees nothing but the parrot's eye when aiming to hit the parrot . http://hindumythologyforgennext.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-eye...

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#23

Post by hfdgiutdryg » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Your eyes should be scanning at all times. Those 'experienced' drivers have literal blind spots and are likely to enter a mental state akin to a sleep state.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#24

Post by taurath » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #23

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Your eyes should be scanning at all times. Those 'experienced' drivers have literal blind spots and are likely to enter a mental state akin to a sleep state.

That’s not really what allows people to drive safely. Without filters youd treat stationary objects with the same deference as moving ones.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#25

Post by habitue » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #23

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Your eyes should be scanning at all times. Those 'experienced' drivers have literal blind spots and are likely to enter a mental state akin to a sleep state.

Your advice is for an experienced driver who wants to become even better. The original commenter's scenario talked about novice vs. experienced. If you just tell a novice driver to scan everywhere, it's not actionable advice. Since, as was pointed out, they have not built a good filter yet. They'll end up being stressed out looking all over the place, when the simpler advice that driver's ed gives like "check these 3 places every 30 seconds", while far from perfect, will get them looking around a little bit and training that filter without becoming overwhelmed.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#26

Post by arkades » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #23

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Your eyes should be scanning at all times. Those 'experienced' drivers have literal blind spots and are likely to enter a mental state akin to a sleep state.

So what you’re saying is, learn from those most likely to get into car accidents, rather than the least likely?

https://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/...

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#27

Post by vyas45 » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

Anyone has thoughts on 'quiet eye' and programming in general. What is the focus scope ?

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#28

Post by justinzollars » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

vyas45 wrote: post #27

Anyone has thoughts on 'quiet eye' and programming in general. What is the focus scope ?

When you are getting grilled by the support team, a VP and your boss about a fire on production yet one can maintain a crystal clear focus - even writing solid tests before deploying the hot fix.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#29

Post by blueprint » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #23

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Your eyes should be scanning at all times. Those 'experienced' drivers have literal blind spots and are likely to enter a mental state akin to a sleep state.

That's what properly aligned mirrors and looking over your shoulder are for..? Any sleep state you could be referring to is caused by (a) exhaustion or (b) being unaware of being a bad driver.

Re: Why athletes need a ‘quiet eye’

#30

Post by archibaldJ » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

When I was taking driver's ed as a teenager the instructor showed us a video that illustrated a driver's gaze from the first person as they drove using a small circle. The difference between a skilled, competent driver and a student was that the competent driver only fixated on things that were likely to matter. So mostly their gaze was on the vehicle in front of them, followed by any place that could hold moving obj…

Intriguing. A friend of mine just learnt how to drive very recently. He told me he was able to pick up driving much faster than an average person as he was able to apply the skill he developed in many years of playing Counter-Strike Global Offensive in driving: Instead of looking everywhere he would focus his attention on things that likely to matter and react to it like he was playing the first person shooter game. He once managed to reach top 1000 in the country for the game and he took roughly half the number of lessons an average person here needed to get his license. But I wonder how many of what he believed are true. Have there been any studies done on things like this?