Unwanted effects in aiming actions: The relationship between gaze behavior and performance in a golf putting task
Section snippets
Participants
Twenty-seven undergraduate students (14 women, 13 men) with no golf experience served as participants. Their mean age was 21.9 years (SD = .43). Informed consent was obtained and the rights of participants were protected in the study. The protocol of the experiment was approved by the Ethics Committee of the research institute.
Experimental set-up
Participants performed putts with a standard golf ball and putter on a carpeted indoor putting green (Greenfield, Al Kampen/The Netherlands) that was 1.20 m wide and
Correlations between fixation duration and end position
In line with our expectations, the correlation coefficient between the duration of fixations in front of the hole and the distance of the ball to the hole was negative, r = −.13, p < .05, while the correlation coefficient of the duration of fixations behind the hole and the distance of the ball to the hole was positive, r = .34, p < .01. To provide visual support for these correlations we computed the average duration with which participants fixated any of the three locations (in front of hole,
Discussion
The main purpose of this study was to gain more insight into the relationship between gaze behavior and putting performance when unwanted effects, either overcompensation or ironic effects, occur. By having participants execute a golf putting task with negative instructions and mental load, both overcompensation and ironic effects were induced. Not all participants were equally susceptible to unwanted effects, with a number of participants per condition showing good performance, several showing
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