Motor skills of basketball players transfer to dart, but not their perceptual component

Abstract

The Quiet Eye (QE) is defined as the final fixation prior to the motor response (Vickers, 1996) and is associated with expertise and performance. However, the extent to which this specific perceptual skill is tranferable to similar tasks is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the transferability of motor and perceptual skills from basketball to darts. 13 skilled and 13 less skilled basketball players participated and performed 15 basketball free throws and 15 dart throws in counterbalanced order. Throwing accuracy (motor skill) and QE duration (perceptual skill) were measured for both tasks. Skilled basketball players significantly outperformed the less skilled in basketball free throw accuracy, t(24) = 9.21, p < .01, d = 3.61, and dart throwing accuracy, t(24) = 2.96, p < .01, d = 1.16. Interestingly the unexpected superior performance in dart throwing can be explained by the deviation on the x-axis, t(24) = 2.23, p = .03, d = 0.87, but not on the y-axis, t(24) = 1.42, p = .17, d = 0.56, TP = .30. The QE duration showed no significant skill level differences, neither for the basketball task, t(24) = 1.53, p = .07, d = .60, nor for the dart throwing task, t(24) = 0.02, p = .98, d = .01, TP = .05. These results suggest some transfer of motor skills, arguably due to the alignment of the motor components, since skilled players outperformed less skilled in both tasks. However, these differences are not easily discussed by transferred perceptual skills captured by QE.