Editorial: New lines of inquiry for investigating visual search behavior in human movement

The goal of this Research Topic was to examine the emerging approaches to understanding the role of visual search in human movement. The varying aspects covered in this Research Topic highlights the continued growing interest in understanding visual search behavior in human movement and the articles within the topic provide insightful ideas for continuing to develop future research

Development and evaluation of a virtual environment to assess cycling hazard perception skills

Safe cycling requires situational awareness to identify and perceive hazards in the environment to react to and avoid dangerous situations. Concurrently, tending to external distractions leads to a failure to identify hazards or to respond appropriately in a time-constrained manner. Hazard perception training can enhance the ability to identify and react to potential dangers while cycling. Although cycling on the road in the presence of driving cars provides an excellent opportunity to develop and evaluate hazard perception skills, there are obvious ethical and practical risks, requiring extensive resources to facilitate safety, particularly when involving children. Therefore, we developed a Cycling and Hazard Perception virtual reality (VR) simulator (CHP-VR simulator) to create a safe environment where hazard perception can be evaluated and/or trained in a real-time setting. The player interacts in the virtual environment through a stationary bike, where sensors on the bike transfer the player’s position and actions (speed and road positioning) into the virtual environment. A VR headset provides a real-world experience for the player, and a procedural content generation (PCG) algorithm enables the generation of playable artifacts. Pilot data using experienced adult cyclists was collected to develop and evaluate the VR simulator through measuring gaze behavior, both in VR and in situ. A comparable scene (cycling past a parked bus) in VR and in situ was used. In this scenario, cyclists fixated 20% longer at the bus in VR compared to in situ. However, limited agreement identified that the mean differences fell within 95% confidence intervals. The observed differences were likely attributed to a lower number of concurrently appearing elements (i.e., cars) in the VR environment compared with in situ. Future work will explore feasibility testing in young children by increasing assets and incorporating a game scoring system to direct attention to overt and covert hazards

The impact of mobile phone use on where we look and how we walk when negotiating floor based obstacles

Pedestrians regularly engage with their mobile phone whilst walking. The current study investigated how mobile phone use affects where people look (visual search behaviour) and how they negotiate a floor based hazard placed along the walking path. Whilst wearing a mobile eye tracker and motion analysis sensors, participants walked up to and negotiated a surface height change whilst writing a text, reading a text, talking on the phone, or without a phone. Differences in gait and visual search behaviour were found when using a mobile phone compared to when not using a phone. Using a phone resulted in looking less frequently and for less time at the surface height change, which led to adaptations in gait by negotiating it in a manner consistent with adopting an increasingly cautious stepping strategy. When using a mobile phone, writing a text whilst walking resulted in the greatest adaptions in gait and visual search behaviour compared to reading a text and talking on a mobile phone. Findings indicate that mobile phone users were able to adapt their visual search behaviour and gait to incorporate mobile phone use in a safe manner when negotiating floor based obstacles

Visual search behaviour in young cyclists: A naturalistic experiment

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Visual Search Behavior in Individuals With Retinitis Pigmentosa During Level Walking and Obstacle Crossing

Purpose: Investigate the visual search strategy of individuals with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) when negotiating a floor-based obstacle compared with level walking, and compared with those with normal vision. Methods: Wearing a mobile eye tracker, individuals with RP and normal vision walked along a level walkway or walked along the walkway negotiating a floor-based obstacle. In the level walking condition, tape was placed on the floor to act as an object attracting visual attention. Analysis compared where individuals looked within the environment. Results: In the obstacle compared with level walking condition: (1) the RP group reduced the length of time and the number of times they looked Ahead, and increased the time and how often they looked at features on the ground (Object and Down, P < 0.05); and (2) the visual normal group reduced the time (by 19%) they looked Ahead (P = 0.076), and increased the time and how often they looked at the Object (P < 0.05). Compared with the normal vision group, in both level walking and obstacle conditions, the RP group reduced the time looking Ahead and looked for longer and more often Down (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The RP group demonstrated a more active visual search pattern, looking at more areas on the ground in both level walking and obstacle crossing compared with visual normals. This gaze strategy was invariant across conditions. This is most likely due to the constricted visual field and inability to rely on inferior peripheral vision to acquire information from the floor within the environment when walking

Visual Search Strategies of Soccer Players Executing a Power vs. Placement Penalty Kick

Introduction: When taking a soccer penalty kick, there are two distinct kicking techniques that can be adopted; a ‘power’ penalty or a ‘placement’ penalty. The current study investigated how the type of penalty kick being taken affected the kicker’s visual search strategy and where the ball hit the goal (end ball location). Method: Wearing a portable eye tracker, 12 university footballers executed 2 power and placement penalty kicks, indoors, both with and without the presence of a goalkeeper. Video cameras were used to determine initial ball velocity and end ball location. Results: When taking the power penalty, the football was kicked significantly harder and more centrally in the goal compared to the placement penalty. During the power penalty, players fixated on the football for longer and more often at the goalkeeper (and by implication the middle of the goal), whereas in the placement penalty, fixated longer at the goal, specifically the edges. Findings remained consistent irrespective of goalkeeper presence. Discussion/conclusion: Findings indicate differences in visual search strategy and end ball location as a function of type of penalty kick. When taking the placement penalty, players fixated and kicked the football to the edges of the goal in an attempt to direct the ball to an area that the goalkeeper would have difficulty reaching and saving. Fixating significantly longer on the football when taking the power compared to placement penalty indicates a greater importance of obtaining visual information from the football. This can be attributed to ensuring accurate foot-to-ball contact and subsequent generation of ball velocity. Aligning gaze and kicking the football centrally in the goal when executing the power compared to placement penalty may have been a strategy to reduce the risk of kicking wide of the goal altogether

The influence of stress on visual attention and performance execution in aiming tasks

This thesis examines the endocrine response in naturalistic sport environments and laboratory based stress manipulations to investigate the role of anxiety and biological stress on visual search behaviour and movement execution in perceptual-motor skills. The first study, a systematic review with meta-analysis, identified that athletes experience a significant cortisol response in anticipation to sport competition. Moderator analysis identified that females and athletes competing at international level do not demonstrate this anticipatory cortisol response. Study two, a validation of a golf putting task with a pressure manipulation including self-presentation and performance contingent motivational stimuli, identified distinct inter-individual differences in HPA-axis reactivity, in contrast to SNS reactivity. Responders demonstrated a significant increase in cortisol, in magnitude comparable to real sport competitions, where this was absent in non-responders. Non-significant correlations were found between endocrine reactivity and self-reported measures of anxiety, supporting previous research of the independence of the biological and emotional stress response. The effects of anxiety and endocrine reactivity on performance, visual attention and movement execution in a golf putting task were examined in study three and four. Study three identified that performance accuracy significantly improved under high pressure compared to low pressure. This improvement in performance was explained by a significant reduction in visual attention towards task-irrelevant stimuli and reduced variability in the club head angle at ball impact. Study 4 explored the effects of inter-individual differences in endocrine reactivity on the underlying processes of golf putting performance. Participants with high levels of cortisol were significantly less accurate in performance outcome compared to participants with low cortisol. A significant increase in visual attention towards task-irrelevant stimuli in participants with high cortisol, provided support for the influence of cortisol on the stimulus-driven attentional system in executing perceptual-motor skills under pressure. The interdisciplinary approach in the examination of stress and anxiety on sport performance suggests that both anxiety and cortisol reactivity effects sport performance through its influence on visual attention and movement execution. The inter-individual differences in cortisol reactivity and its effect on movement execution and visual attention, warrants further investigation

A multi-disciplinary examination of football development and performance: a perceptual-cognitive perspective

In football there are various objective methods for measuring and tracking development of specific physical (e.g., speed) and motor skills (e.g., shooting). However, there are no objective tools to measure football specific perceptual-cognitive skills (e.g., anticipation). Thus, the primary objective of the study was to examine the perceptual-cognitive skills (i.e., anticipation and option generation processes) of low and high skill, male and female football players using a video-based task environment. Players were shown action clips of developing football plays that were stopped at three temporal points (i.e., 400ms, 200ms and 0ms) prior to an action and when the last frame was frozen or occluded. Using an answer sheer, players were required to anticipate the action and generate and prioritize the plausible options. High-skill players scored better on the anticipation and option generation tasks throughout the conditions. In addition, task conditions affected high and low-skill players differently. Gender differences were also observed. Male players anticipated actions more accurately, generated more plausible options, and prioritized them more efficiently, than females. Findings provided insights into the mechanisms underlying option generation and anticipation processes in football. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is possible to capture perceptual-cognitive skills in soccer