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What is the visual behaviour and attentional effort of football players in different positions during a real 11v11 game? A pilot study [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]
- Source :
- F1000Research. 12:679
- Publication Year :
- 2023
- Publisher :
- London, UK: F1000 Research Limited, 2023.
-
Abstract
- Background : Visual perception has been defined as the first step to a football player’s decision-making process and it plays an important role in performance in sport. The skill of focussing to prioritize relevant cues has been also considered crucial in sport. This pilot study aims to explore the visual behaviour and attentional effort of three football players (mean age 19 ± 0 years old) in specific-role positions; Right-winger (RW), Centre-Midfielder (CM) and Left-Back (LB), in the five seconds before receiving the ball from their teammate. Methods : Twenty-two male football players performed an 11v11 game, where 24 game sequences (trials) from which 166 fixations were recorded and analysed via the Tobii Pro eye-movement registration glasses and software. The gaze behaviour dependent variables were the mean of fixation duration (FD), time to first fixation (TTF), both measured in milliseconds (ms), and the number of fixations (NF) on eight areas of interest (AOIs). AOIs include teammate with and without the ball, opponent without the ball, space around teammate with and without the ball, space around opponent without the ball, ball and undefined. The mean pupil diameter (PD) correlates to the attentional effort and was measured in millimetres (mm). Results : Descriptive statistics showed nonregular search rate data between the participants in FD, TTF, NF on the AOIs. Mean FD on the ball: (CM, 270 ms), (RW, 570 ms), (CM, 380 ms). They also presented differences in the mean PD during play; (CM: 2.90 mm ± 0.26), (RW: 2.74 mm ± 0.30), (LB 2.77mm ± 0.27). Conclusions: Albeit the sample size was small, the findings demonstrated a promising way to measure the on-field perceptual-cognitive abilities of football players according to their specific positions, since different playing roles revealed to present distinctive visual and attentional patterns.
Details
- ISSN :
- 20461402
- Volume :
- 12
- Database :
- F1000Research
- Journal :
- F1000Research
- Notes :
- Revised Amendments from Version 1 The introduction has been revised to provide a more seamless flow of concepts, addressing the reviewer's recommendations. The phrase "when talking about" has been appropriately replaced with "for" to enhance clarity, ensuring the discussion of spatial awareness is more cohesive. Additionally, the suggestion to insert "up" after "picked" has been integrated, reinforcing the description of how visual information is processed. In response to the comment of the reviewer, we have added a more comprehensive explanation of the rationale behind choosing on investigating the participants’ visual search, the five seconds (instead of ten seconds) before receiving the ball from a teammate during 11v11 games. We emphasized our aim to use concisely this type of data as part of a multi-disciplinary team supporting a football coaching staff. In the method section, we have also included the total amount of hours of our participants' football practice. These insights contribute to a better understanding of participants' exposure to football-related training. Lastly, the discussion has been enriched with the inclusion of findings from the recent study by Luis-del Campo and colleagues (2023), which focused on evaluating mental load through ocular metrics and saccadic features. This addition allows for a more robust comparison of findings and enhances the overall discourse on attentional effort., , [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsfor.10.12688.f1000research.134231.2
- Document Type :
- research-article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.134231.2