What information is being acquired during the period of Quiet Eye? Comment on Vickers

Abstract

Sports and athletes’ highest performance offer a fascinating scenario to investigate perceptual-motor expertise. The remarkable work of Joan Vickers has captured this opportunity and built a valuable experimental paradigm. Our commentary emphasizes what information is being acquired during the period of Quiet Eye (QE), capable to produce successful performance. First, an extended notion of visual system that includes posture is presented. It is suggested that QE would represent a collective postural effort (resulting from movements of eyes, head, trunk, and whole body) to acquire the relevant information available in the optic flow. Second, the contribution of neural structures and functioning for vision and attention is discussed. Models of neural networks of attention and two visual systems are described with respect to QE and some questions about action parameters and motor programs are raised.