Performance Improvement and Skill Transfer in Table Tennis Through Training in Virtual Reality.

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Motor Learning

Background:

• Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly used in sports for training and assessment.
• Key questions remain regarding VR's effectiveness for learning and transferring complex motor skills in sports.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if complex motor skills in table tennis can be learned in VR.
• To determine if these learned skills transfer to real-world performance.
• To evaluate a novel VR table tennis system for training and feedback.

Main Methods:

• Developed a VR table tennis system with customized physics, realistic stimuli, haptics, and motion capture.
• Assessed skill acquisition and transfer by comparing real-world performance between a VR-trained group (n=8) and a control group (n=7).
• Measured technique and ball return success over five training sessions and a retention test.

Main Results:

• The VR-trained group showed significant improvements in table tennis technique.
• No significant changes were observed in the number of balls returned in the real-life retention session for the VR group.
• The control group showed no significant changes in either metric.

Conclusions:

• Complex motor skills can be acquired through Virtual Reality (VR) training.
• Skills learned in VR can transfer to real-world performance.
• The developed VR table tennis platform offers an affordable solution for effective sports training with real-time feedback.