Table Tennis: Visual cues on return of the serve.

There have been a large number of studies in sports psychology that analyse the relations betwen visual perception and sports performance. This work belongs to this field of reserch. Sometimes, in table tennis, the different skill levels between players are extremely evident. For example, when a novice player is matched against an expert player, the novice player is unable to correctly return the serve and the point is stopped immediately after only two strokes. In that situation, the visual selection of the significant information is very imporant. Information is also hidden in space and time. Expert players use visual cues like the line of the shoulders, waist baricentric movements, and paddle movement of the opponent player to predict with more accuracy and in advance where the ball will arrive. For these reasons a correct visual behavior before the ball is struck is the basis for an accurate motor response later. In this experiment, we have compared two groups of subjects having different levels of expertise in a video task focused on the prediction of the location of arrival of the trajectory of a table tennis ball. Each participant has been given a score in relaton to the number of correct answers. From data analysis, it appears evident that expert players more accurately predict the trajectory of the ball by recognizing the right visual cues from body, paddle, and ball trajectory of the opponent player