Visio-spatial intelligence (vsi) between premier league, first division rugby players and non-athletes in the development of a sportspecific visio-spatial intelligence test battery
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Date
2020
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University of Zululand
Abstract
Competitive rugby is a popular sport in South Africa, that not only serves as a major commercial platform viewed by millions of spectators weekly, but also hosts a large number of players that participate in the sport. Athletes in any sport can spend hours training in order to improve their strength, speed and the endurance of their muscles. However, if their visual processing capabilities are inadequate, their physical training may not be optimised and thus their performance will suffer. Despite this, sport vision has only received attention in relation to research in recent years. The reliance and importance of the visual system necessitates the need to determine the factors that affect an athlete’s ability to obtain and respond to appropriate visual stimuli. To date, research has focused on individual factors that affect vision and visiospatial intelligence (VSI). However, a combination of factors could warrant a more holistic approach. This study summarised and compiled an overview of the factors affecting vision and VSI in athletes, covering those factors previously connected with sport, as well as those hitherto not yet associated with athletic activities, but that could also play a part in sporting performance. In this study, fourteen factors affecting vision and VSI in athletes were identified, and this compilation provides a starting point for further study. This study reveals that many factors can affect vision and VSI, and could add significantly to the processes relating to visual testing of athletes and assessments of their decision-making skills. This study further indicates that while current research still tends to focus on single factors affecting vision and VSI, a large number of these factors have been identified and empirically researched. This offers new opportunities for researchers to investigate the effects of a combination of factors, and for coaches to explore further possibilities for competitive advantage.
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. In this regard, the present study has compared the visual expertise of first-division rugby players to non-athletes. Participants underwent an optometric assessment after which the following six VSI components were measured, namely; 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 (p ≤ 0.05) better in five of the six tests, with the exception of visual memory (p = 0.893). While this study substantiates the notion that athletes, in this case first-division rugby players, perform significantly better in most VSI components, this is not the case for all aspects of vision.
Further, this study attempted to discern whether Premier League rugby players have superior VSI in comparison to non-athletes when comparing six visual skills namely; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory and hand-eye coordination. As with first-division rugby players, a statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) difference existed between Premier League rugby players and non-athletes for five out of the six tests. Conversely, no real evidence is shown that visual memory differs between Premier League rugby players and non- athletes (p = 0.599).
While novices in sport possesses similar visual skills to that of experts playing at a higher level, there may be major differences in performance in these VSI skills. In addition, expert athletes may only demonstrate superiority in specific vision skills and not all aspects of vision. Thus, the present study compared the performance of Premier League rugby players (n = 40) and first-division rugby players (n = 40) on six specific components of vision, namely; accommodation facility, saccadic eye movement, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, visual memory, and hand-eye coordination. Premier League rugby players performed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) better than the first-division rugby players in five of the six tests, but were found to be similar in visual memory performance (p = 0.810).
The findings of the present study indicate that first-division and Premier League rugby players have superior VSI when compared to non-athletes. What is particularly noteworthy is that non-athletes are not worse than either first-division or Premier League rugby players with regards to visual memory. Further, while this study substantiates the proposal that expert athletes, and specifically rugby players, have superior visual expertise to novice athletes, it also found that this is not the case with all vision skills. Again, no difference was found in visual memory between novice (first-division) and expert (Premier League) rugby players. These findings suggest that sport-specific vision testing batteries may be required to distinguish high performers from low performers in the same vein as physical tests are utilised in the selection and recruitment of athletes. In this regard, the present study proposes a rugby-specific test battery in an attempt to distinguish high VSI performers from low VSI performers.
Description
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Human Movement and Biokinetic Sports Science in the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering, University of Zululand, 2020.
Keywords
Visio-spatial intelligence (vsi), premier league, first division rugby players and non-athletes