14 DAY TRIAL // Perhaps the aspiration of a not so literate father is to see how his son becomes a great hitter. Well, a new research shows that it is not all about training, but genes too play a role in tracking balls and other moving objects, as revealed by a new research.
"Our results show that individuals vary tremendously in this ability to lock their eyes onto a moving object, called smooth pursuit, and that this variation relates strongly to a specific type of motion perception ability, so-called high-level motion perception," said co-author and Jeremy Wilmer, cognitive psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. The ability of our eyes to catch up to a moving object, named low-level motion perception, allows our vision to detect something fluttering before we can recognize the object. This is high-level motion, when our eyes lock on, detect and examine the object.
Wilmer's team checked low- and high-level motion perception abilities of 45 subjects.
In one approach, the subjects could not move their eyes and had to assess the speed at which they detected objects zooming by. The second approach measured the movement of people's eyes and their ability to follow moving objects.
Some subjects had an extremely good low-level motion perception, catching easily and rapidly moving objects with their eyes. Other subjects had better high-level motion perception, locking onto moving objects once their eyes captured them (smooth pursuit).
"The two different aspects of perceiving motion drive different stages of smooth pursuit. The distinct brain mechanisms for high-level motion perception are separate from those used to recognize and analyze color, faces and even low-level motion perception," Wilmer said.
"Our experience of the world normally appears quite seamless, but in fact our brain sees many aspects separately and knits them together into one experience of the world. Our study shows that substantial differences exist between individuals. As with most abilities, presumably an individual's skill at smooth pursuit is due to some combination of their genes and experiences. Batters with a heightened ability at high-level perception may have eyes better skilled at locking onto and smoothly pursuing a pitch, and could especially have an advantage in analyzing a baseball's spin during the first third of a ball's trajectory," he added.
Thus, training focused on high-level motion perception could increase a player's skill to lock onto and determining an oncoming pitch.
"However, it's not yet known whether the trait runs in families and whether particular genes contribute to making one a smooth pursuit expert." warned Wilmer.
The skill is also useful in complex social situations. For example, while walking on the street, it determines your ability to assess the facial expression of an approaching person; if he/she is angry, you can find an escape route in case you detect this earlier.
"I think there's a great assumption that we see the same thing," Wilmer told LiveScience.
"But it's not surprising that people have such big differences in abilities as evident in baseball and social function."