Superiority and characteristics of visual motion discriminability in collegiate table tennis players

Table tennis (TT) players, through repetitive exposure to visual motion, may develop enhanced visual motion discriminability due to perceptual learning. This study compared visual motion direction discrimination (MDD) abilities among TT, soccer (SC) players, and track and field (TF) athletes using random dot kinematogram tests. Participants discriminated the direction of coherently moving dots with and without surrounding dots randomly moving (background noise). TT and SC players significantly outperformed TF athletes in MDD tasks at specific visual field eccentricities. TT players showed superior discriminability in near-peripheral vision, likely due to the frequent need to track a ball in this area during play. In contrast, SC players excelled in far-peripheral vision, reflecting their experience monitoring a broader visual field. This advantage was pronounced in conditions with background noise, emphasizing the importance of figure-ground segregation for extracting the motion specific to the athlete's behavioral decision from various surrounding motions. We conclude that the sport-specific visual experiences of TT and SC players, particularly their repeated exposure to unique visual motion environments, lead to enhanced motion discriminability that is finely tuned to their respective sport's demands. This improvement supports superior visuomotor performance and underscores perceptual learning's adaptability to the distinct challenges in different sports.