Set shot shooting performance and visual acuity in basketball.
Common sense suggests that decreasing visual acuity will have a negative effect on basketball shooting performance. To test the hypothesis that basketball shooting performance monotonically decreases with decreasing acuity, 19 subjects attempted 25 set shots from a fixed location at each of 5 different acuity levels: 6/6 or better and vision blurred (by optical defocus) to visual acuities of 6/12, 6/24, 6/48, and 6/75. Our results revealed a small but statistically nonsignificant decrease in shooting performance between the 6/6+ and 6/12 conditions. For visual acuities between 6/12 and 6/75, the number of baskets made remained constant. We conclude that decreases in visual acuity over the range of 6/6+ to 6/75 resulting from defocus do not significantly reduce set shot shooting performance.
Applegate
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Department of Ophthalmology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.
Applegate
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D000293:Adolescent; D001490:Basketball; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013178:Sports Medicine; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014792:Visual Acuity; D014796:Visual Perception