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I didn't find this a convincing read. There may be good research about quiet eye, I don't know personally, but how is it a revelation to say athletes and expert

I didn't find this a convincing read. There may be good research about quiet eye, I don't know personally, but how is it a revelation to say athletes and experts focus very intently on one spot with their vision? This seems to border on truism to me, why would a professional athlete need to look all around to judge different parameters? Someone like Serena Williams has served the ball millions of times, is she truly going to gain more information by looking all around? Whereas, for a novice, it would be useful to look at the service box, then back at the ball, then at your feet to ensure your stance is good, then to your grip. So, is this expert effect simply a product of muscle memory and intense focus?

fortythirteen 8y ago
The article (and anyone who focuses on "quiet eye") is placing emphasis on one of many triggers to flow state. Hyper visual focus is no different than the focused breathing of vipassana "mindfulness" mediation, or the pre-action routines that are standard in sports psychology. If LeBron has a mental, pre-freethrow routine of focusing his vision on the tip of the hoop, bounces the ball twice, spins it, and then shoots, he's triggering his mind to focus on the precise moment and allowing his subconscious to take over. There are a number of great books on this subject, but my favorites are How Champions Think, by Bob Rotella, and The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford.
s-shellfish 8y ago
I rarely think about these things from neuroscience perspectives anymore, but I'd imagine simply tuning into one's environment using conceptual representations like words and data can remove oneself from a state of flow, when what matters most is muscle memory, reflexes, strength - all physical stuff. Overloading the mind with information the body must calculate through the mind, that sounds to me like it would be sending an interrupt signal to a system that's already functioning correctly (or at peak performance, what have you) The visual field is the most simplified representation of data one needs when the body is doing the rest of the work. You can't think your way into running faster, you can convince yourself that's what the mind is doing for something like, extreme distances, training (maintaining motivation to improve performance), but the goal at the end is training the literal muscle to respond efficiently, and training the mind to react to the environment precisely according to the set of rules laid out by the game. Reasoning about it beyond the literal reality of the game, and the literal ability of the body, once both of those spaces have been trained to peak performance is inefficient, so I would imagine it would be easy to discard all of the thinking that got you to that point. It's like it transforms into a feeling of comfort and confidence instead, because I would assume you would become accustomed to all of that stuff working as expected, your own performance would become predictable and unwavering.
lukeatuke 8y ago
You are missing at least one point of the article --- that specifically training the "quiet eye" actually improves performance.

fortythirteen 8y ago

The article (and anyone who focuses on "quiet eye") is placing emphasis on one of many triggers to flow state. Hyper visual focus is no different than the focused breathing of vipassana "mindfulness" mediation, or the pre-action routines that are standard in sports psychology. If LeBron has a mental, pre-freethrow routine of focusing his vision on the tip of the hoop, bounces the ball twice, spins it, and then shoots, he's triggering his mind to focus on the precise moment and allowing his subconscious to take over. There are a number of great books on this subject, but my favorites are How Champions Think, by Bob Rotella, and The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford.

s-shellfish 8y ago

I rarely think about these things from neuroscience perspectives anymore, but I'd imagine simply tuning into one's environment using conceptual representations like words and data can remove oneself from a state of flow, when what matters most is muscle memory, reflexes, strength - all physical stuff. Overloading the mind with information the body must calculate through the mind, that sounds to me like it would be sending an interrupt signal to a system that's already functioning correctly (or at peak performance, what have you) The visual field is the most simplified representation of data one needs when the body is doing the rest of the work. You can't think your way into running faster, you can convince yourself that's what the mind is doing for something like, extreme distances, training (maintaining motivation to improve performance), but the goal at the end is training the literal muscle to respond efficiently, and training the mind to react to the environment precisely according to the set of rules laid out by the game. Reasoning about it beyond the literal reality of the game, and the literal ability of the body, once both of those spaces have been trained to peak performance is inefficient, so I would imagine it would be easy to discard all of the thinking that got you to that point. It's like it transforms into a feeling of comfort and confidence instead, because I would assume you would become accustomed to all of that stuff working as expected, your own performance would become predictable and unwavering.

lukeatuke 8y ago

You are missing at least one point of the article --- that specifically training the "quiet eye" actually improves performance.