(Press-News.org) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Golfers looking to improve their putting may find an advantage in visualizing the hole as bigger, according to a new study from Purdue University.
"People in our study made more successful putts in a smaller hole when a visual illusion helped them perceive it as larger," said Jessica K. Witt, an assistant professor of psychological science who studies perception in sports. "We know that how people perceive the environment affects their ability to act in it, such as scoring as basket or hitting a baseball, and now we know that seeing a target as larger leads to improved performance.
"More work is needed to better understand this effect, but we think the perceived increase in target size will boost confidence in one's abilities."
For the first time, Witt looked at how manipulating what athletes see could influence their immediate performance. Her findings are published in the April issue of Psychological Science.
Witt's previous work has shown how perception and performance work together in softball, tennis and football. For example, softball players who hit the ball better saw it as bigger, and people successfully kicking a football through the goal posts saw the target as larger.
In this golf study, 36 participants putted to two different-sized holes while a projector displayed a ring of smaller and larger circles around each hole to create an optical illusion. The smaller circles around the hole made it look bigger. Before putting, the person's perception of each hole was measured by having them draw the estimated size of the hole. Their perception was correlated with their scores, and those who saw the smaller hole, which was 5.08 centimeters in diameter, as bigger putted about 10 percent more successfully.
"A future goal is to develop techniques to help athletes see their target differently," Witt said. "Effects of these visual illusions will then lead to improvements in performance."
INFORMATION:
This work was supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Witt collaborated on the study with Sally A. Linkenauger, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and Dennis R. Proffitt, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Source: Jessica K. Witt, 765-496-1916, jkwitt@purdue.edu
Related website:
Jessica K. Witt: http://www1.psych.purdue.edu/~jkwitt/
PHOTO CAPTION:
Jessica K. Witt, a Purdue assistant professor of psychological science who studies perception in sports, has found that golfers putt better if they visualize the hole as bigger. Her findings are published in the April issue of Psychological Science. (Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)
A publication-quality photo is available at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/2012/witt-putting.jpg
Study: Golfers can improve their putt with a different look
2012-04-04
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
The Stewart Law Firm, PLLC Welcomes S. Burgess Williams
2012-04-04
Stephen W. Stewart, founding member of The Stewart Law Firm, P.L.L.C. in Austin, Texas, is pleased to announce that Burgess Williams has joined the firm as an associate attorney. Burgess devotes his career to helping those injured as a result of the negligence of others. Burgess handles cases involving wrongful death, workplace injuries, oilfield/industrial injuries, 18-wheeler crashes, motor vehicle crashes, defective products, toxic exposure, and insurance bad faith claims.
Burgess Williams is a graduate of Wake Forest University, where he received a B.A. in History. ...
New York City Law Firm's Newly Updated Facebook Page Provides Helpful Legal Resources
2012-04-04
According to Facebook's own newsroom, the social media giant has more than 845 million users who log into the social platform each month. And for many of those users, it is not simply about keeping in contact with old friends and playing games -- it is about getting the information they need. Facebook recognizes this by continuing to make changes to the platform to make it more user-friendly.
Thanks to one of Facebook's most recent changes, Timeline for Pages, businesses like the law firm of Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman (TGL) can provide more information to injured ...
April 2012 story tips
2012-04-04
BIOLOGY -- When neutrons and simulation unite . . .
Scientific analysis of proteins, the workhorses of the cellular world, could become easier by uniting experimental and simulation techniques, according to research published in Biophysical Journal. A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jeremy Smith demonstrated how the combination of high-performance computer simulation and a type of neutron analysis called spin echo can be used to study certain motions in proteins. When large chunks of proteins called domains move relative to each other, these interdomain motions ...
Young girls more likely to report side effects after HPV vaccine
2012-04-04
April 03, 2012— Younger girls are more likely than adult women to report side effects after receiving Gardasil, the human papillomavirus vaccine. The side effects are non-serious and similar to those associated with other vaccines, according to a new study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Journal of Women's Health.
As part of an ongoing study and evaluation of this relatively new vaccine, researchers surveyed 899 girls and young women (ages 11-26) within two weeks after they received the Gardasil vaccine injection in the upper ...
Robosquirrels versus rattlesnakes
2012-04-04
Robot squirrels from the University of California, Davis, are going into rattlesnake country near San Jose, continuing a research project on the interaction between squirrels and rattlesnakes.
In the lab, robot squirrels have shown how squirrels signal to snakes with heat and tail flagging. Through field experiments, researchers from San Diego State University and UC Davis aim to learn more about rattlesnake behavior.
It's not the only use of robots to study animal behavior at UC Davis. Terry Ord, a former postdoctoral researcher now at Harvard University, used robot ...
NC Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Worker in Workers' Comp Claim
2012-04-04
One of an employer's strongest arguments against a workers' compensation claim is that the person filing for benefits was not an employee at the time of the accident. This is often seen with independent contractors, since they are generally not covered by North Carolina's Workers' Compensation Act.
North Carolina law defines an employee within this Act broadly. The scope includes "every person engaged in an employment under any appointment or contract of hire or apprenticeship, express or implied, oral or written, including aliens, and also minors, whether lawfully ...
New isotope measurement could alter history of early solar system
2012-04-04
ARGONNE, Ill. -- The early days of our solar system might look quite different than previously thought, according to research at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory published in Science. The study used more sensitive instruments to find a different half-life for samarium, one of the isotopes used to chart the evolution of the solar system.
"It shrinks the chronology of early events in the solar system, like the formation of planets, into a shorter time span," said Argonne physicist Michael Paul. "It also means some of the oldest rocks on ...
Increased Cost of Living: Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Life Suits
2012-04-04
Not too long ago, a Florida couple was eagerly awaiting the birth of their new baby. Like most couples, they were excited to bring their little bundle of joy into this world. The doctor and ultrasound technician who read the sonogram didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so the couple anticipated a healthy bouncing baby boy.
Tragically, however, their son was born without any arms and only a single leg. The joy about their son's birth quickly shifted to concern and despair.
In what is often called a wrongful birth suit, the couple sued their health care providers ...
Darwin in the genome
2012-04-04
A current controversy raging in evolutionary biology is whether adaptation to new environments is the result of many genes, each of relatively small effect, or just a few genes of large effect. A new study published in Molecular Ecology strongly supports the first "many-small" hypothesis.
McGill University professor Andrew Hendry, from the Department of Biology and the Redpath Museum, and evolutionary geneticists at Basel University in Switzerland, studied how threespine stickleback fish adapted to lake and stream environments in British Columbia, Canada. The authors ...
Lower GI problems plague many with rheumatoid arthritis, Mayo Clinic study finds
2012-04-04
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Add lower gastrointestinal (GI) problems such as ulcers, bleeding and perforations to the list of serious complications facing many rheumatoid arthritis patients. They are at greater risk for GI problems and gastrointestinal-related death than people without the disease, a Mayo Clinic study shows. Researchers say their findings point out the need for new ways to prevent and treat lower GI disease in rheumatoid arthritis patients; the incidence of lower gastrointestinal complications is rising even as upper GI problems decrease significantly among rheumatoid ...