Basketball videos presented on a computer screen appear slower than in virtual reality

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Effective decision-making training is crucial for athletic performance.
• Virtual reality (VR) offers enhanced skill transfer compared to traditional computer screen (CS) methods.
• Athletes anecdotally report VR training videos feel faster than CS videos.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether VR training videos are perceived as accelerated compared to CS videos.
• To quantify the perceived playback speed differences between VR and CS video presentations.
• To understand the impact of VR on perceived video speed during decision-making tasks.

Main Methods:

• Varsity basketball players completed a decision-making task alongside a playback speed estimation task.
• Participants viewed identical video clips in both VR and CS environments.
• Videos were presented at normal, 10% accelerated, or 10% decelerated speeds.

Main Results:

• VR videos were perceived as significantly faster (100.7%) than CS videos (94.9%).
• The perceived acceleration in VR was due to CS videos being perceived as slower than their actual speed.
• VR playback appears immune to the underestimation of speed common with CS videos.

Conclusions:

• VR technology may provide a more accurate perception of video playback speed for athletes in training.
• This enhanced speed perception in VR could contribute to improved decision-making skill transfer.
• Future research should explore the implications of VR's perceived speed accuracy on motor learning and performance.