Attention allocation in team sports: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on eye-tracking

Expert athletes are generally considered to exhibit distinct visual search behaviors and superior behavioral performance. However, findings regarding perceptual-cognitive differences across skill levels in team sports remain inconsistent. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically examine differences in visual search behavior and behavioral performance across skill levels in team sports. A systematic search was conducted in EBSCO, PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science, resulting in 26 eligible studies involving expert, intermediate, and novice athletes from football, basketball, and volleyball. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed using Hedges' g to estimate pooled effect sizes, and subgroup analyses were conducted to examine potential moderating factors. Results revealed that, for eye movement outcomes, only limited evidence supported a significant pooled effect for fixation duration across skill levels. Subgroup analyses based on a limited number of studies identified significant differences between intermediate and novice athletes, particularly in the number of fixations in basketball and volleyball. For behavioral performance, significant differences were observed in reaction time for expert-intermediate and expert-novice comparisons, whereas the overall effect for performance accuracy was not significant after publication bias adjustment. These findings suggest a complex relationship between visual characteristics and behavioral performance at different skill levels in team sports.