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In the past years, we have been dealing with the application of a new experimental paradigm for the investigation of eye movements in sports. Research of perception within sports psychology examines which visual information is used by the athletes to prepare motor reactions (e.g. which movement characteristics does the goalkeeper use to decide on the direction of a penalty kick?). In this context, studies concerning the eye movement behaviour have been conducted to detect the locations of fixation of the athletes in varying sports situations. One difficulty in interpreting the hereby gained results is that visual information is not only processed in a foveal way; particularly in sports games information of the periphery is used as well (peripheral vision).

In collaboration with colleagues from the University of Münster (Dr. Jörg Schorer and Prof. Dr. Bernd Strauß), the VU University Amsterdam (Dr. Rouwen Cañal-Bruland) and by the University of Hannover (Simone Lotz) we managed to control the amount of visual information available in the periphery. In doing so, we use the so-called moving window technique, which allows to only see a small part of the visual field around the point of fixation.
Outside of this visual window, no visual information can be perceived. When the eye moves the window also moves accordingly due to a computer-based interconnection of the eye movement camera with the test programme. By this means, it can be ensured, dependent on the size of the window, that just foveal (2 deg), parafoveal (up to 5 deg) or still peripheral information can be visually perceived. A comparison with a control condition (i.e. no visual constraints) enables us to assess the meaning of the different window sizes.

The phenomenon of laterality in non-sportive environments has been an established area of research for decades. In athletic contexts, however, it has not been researched extensively. Nevertheless, it is this context in particular where interesting approaches of research concerning this subject can be provided: Compared to the percentage of 10-13% in the general population, left-handed athletes are partly overrepresented or above-average successful in interactive sports (e.g. tennis, cricket, baseball).
This phenomenon is preferably explained by a strategic or tactical advantage of left-handers in those types of sports. Compared to right-handers, the left-handers? nearly mirror-image orientation on the playing field, the actions that the right-handed opponent is used to, are performed from the mirrored side and with a different playing/hitting angle.
Furthermore, athletes possess less visual experience with the actions of left-handed opponents, due to their general underrepresentation. This should, amongst other things, result in worse anticipation performance when asked to predict the action outcome of left-handed compared to right-handed actions.

Pete Sampras (1998), right-hander and former number one of the world ranking in tennis, summarized the phenomenon of left-handers in sports as follows: ?Some people just hate playing lefties. There's a certain mystique surrounding left-handed athletes, and the lefties wisely play it up.?

In the context of this project, granted by the DFG, this mystery shall be more intensely researched and the explanation strands, described beforehand, shall be taken up. Furthermore, it will be tested if throwing or hitting techniques of left- and right-handers possibly differ in certain aspects (kinematic analysis of, for example, position of joints or the acceleration of arms).

We also have an increased interest in the influence of the focus of attention within endurance sports. While performing athletic endurance tasks different aspects can be in the centre of attention.
For example, a female runner could mainly concentrate on her breathing, lay her focus on performing her running technique or she could pay attention to the environment and fellow runners. In a recent study (Schücker, Hagemann, Strauß & Völker, 2009) we showed that the focus of attention influences the athletic performance tremendously. Within this study, we chose economy of movement as the performance parameter. The economy of movement in endurance sports was defined by the oxygen uptake rate at a submaximal intensity. That means, if, at a certain motion speed, less oxygen is used up within a time unit, the kinetic behaviour is more economical.

Concerning the oxygen consumption, this examination showed significant differences depending on the focus of attention. In spite of equal running speeds, the external condition (focus on external aspects) caused the lowest oxygen uptake rate, followed by the attention related to movement and the internal focus on breathing.

In order to explain the dominance of the external focus, we consult explanations from the area of motor research: Within the external condition, undisturbed, automated processes are possible whereas the internal condition perturbs those automatisms. The greatest possible economy seems to be possible if and only if automatic control mechanisms are not disturbed in their function. Future studies will examine to what extent the external focus (distraction from automatic control mechanisms) leads to an improvement of running parameters under differing conditions as well.