Abstract
Prolonged quiet eye (QE) duration is associated with greater performance in various types of targeting and interceptive tasks. However, the mechanism by which QE affects performance remains debatable. This study aimed to test the validity of the pre-programming and online control hypotheses using electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG) and electroencephalography (EEG) during a golf putting task. Twenty-one college students were recruited for this study. Each participant performed 100 golf putting trials during which the putting performance, EMG, EOG, and EEG signals were recorded. The QE duration including the pre- and post-movement initiation components, and movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs) were analyzed off-line. We found that successful putts were associated with longer QEtotal (the total QE duration from QE onset to QE offset), QEpre (QE occurring before movement initiation), and QEpost (QE occurring after movement initiation) durations than failed putts. Greater cortical activation in the MRCPs was observed within the prefrontal, premotor, and parietal cortices during successful putts compared with failed putts. These findings suggest that QE serves both pre-programming and online control roles in supporting golf putting performance.
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All data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully thank all participants. We also thank the contribution of the reviewers and the editor, whose comments and suggestions had a significant role in the development of the manuscript.
Funding
This study was supported by the funds from National Social Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 19FTYB008].
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Guoxiao Sun contributed to the study conception and design. Shanshan Xu and Guoxiao Sun performed the material preparation, data collection and analysis. Shanshan Xu wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.
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Handling editor: Alessandro D'Ausilio (University of Pavia)
Reviewers: Derek Mann (Jacksonville University) and a second researcher who prefers to remain anonymous.
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Xu, S., Sun, G. & Wilson, M.R. Neurophysiological evidence of how quiet eye supports motor performance. Cogn Process 22, 641–648 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01036-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01036-3