The relationship of vision and skilled movement-a general review using cricket batting

Skilled movement is not a spontaneous muscular response but represents the final step in a sequence of complicated processes within the central nervous system. An athlete absorbs information from the surrounding sporting environment and processes this information. The final output produces a movement response. The first type of visual information processing involves the reception of visual information that is affected by the ocular characteristics of the athlete's visual system (hardware). The second type of visual information processing involves the perception of visual information that is influenced by the strategies an athlete develops through experience, which results in processing the incoming information more efficiently (software). Drawing from the scientific literature, this presentation will use the sport of cricket to identify and explain the complex relationship between "hardware" and "software."