A sense of distance in golf putting: Elucidation of factors that constrain performance

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K17818
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 59020:Sports sciences-related
• Research Institution: Iwate University
• Principal Investigator: HASEGAWA YUMIKO 岩手大学, 人文社会科学部, 准教授 (20712871)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: スポーツ / 距離感 / 知覚 / キネマティクス / フィードバック / 行為表象 / 誤差予測 / 精度

Outline of Final Research Achievements

For motor tasks that require fine-tuning, such as adjusting the force applied to golf putting depending on the distance to the target, it is important to develop an internal model that associates motor commands with body movements. From the results of our "sense of distance" studies, amateurs predicted undershoots (overshoots) when they gave worse (better) evaluations. These results suggest that the amateurs putted hard to compensate for the risk of an undershoot, which was not a characteristic displayed by the professionals. In other words, the sense of distance of amateurs tends to shift upward. Our results also revealed that while many professionals perceived subtle differences in the environment, more than half of the amateurs committed visual-somatosensory errors in the perception phase. We suggest that the visual-somatosensory errors of intermediate amateurs serve as obstacles to their progress. Furthermore, we also found that the preferred strategies depend on the skill level.

Free Research Field

スポーツ心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の成果の学術的意義として，技能水準のような行為者の内部状態（心理状態）に着眼し，その内部状態の差異(能力) によって環境の知覚の解像度や選好される方略が異なることを明らかにした点にある。
本研究の成果の社会的意義として，ヒトの知覚は眼に映る光のパタンだけでなく，記憶や期待，情動によって形作られることが知られているが，本研究の結果から，運動課題の学習の進捗状況によって，周囲の状況に対する認知が異なることが明らかとなった。したがって，運動を学習する際には，運動技能だけでなく，周囲の状況を適切に認知できるような訓練を積む必要性について提言できると考えられる。