Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A team of baseball players became subjects in a study to examine the real-life application of improving eyesight through brain-training.
After using a vision-training video game, players on the University of California, Riverside baseball team performed significantly better, researchers wrote in a new study published Monday in "Current Biology."
“The vision tests demonstrate that training-based benefits transfer outside the context of the computerized training program to standard eye charts,” said professor Aaron Seitz in a statement. “Players reported seeing the ball better, greater peripheral vision and an ability to distinguish lower-contrast objects.”
Related Story
Local eye care group teams with nonprofit to help African villagers
A local eye care facility joined forces with a nonprofit to help people in Africa improve their vision.Half of the members of the team received the brain-training while the other half continued to practice like normal without it. By the end of the study, the players who participated in the training saw a 31 percent improvement in visual acuity.
The players also had 4.4 percent fewer strikeouts and the team as a whole scored 41 more runs than predicted after taking into account normal improvement for a season, researchers said.
The results of the vision-training program may have applications outside of the sports world.
“We use vision for many daily tasks, including driving, watching TV, or reading,” said researcher Jenni Deveau in a statement. “This type of vision training can help improve not only sports performance, but many of these activities in non-athletes as well.”
This type of vision training can help improve not only sports performance, but many of these activities in non-athletes as well.
–Jenni Deveau
Researchers said they were surprised by how much the players' vision improved because most of them already had good eyesight. Some of the players' eyesight improved to 20/7.5, which means they can see at 20 feet what the average person sees at 7.5 feet.
UCR head baseball coach Doug Smith said he decided to allow his players to participate in the study because vision is crucial to the game.
“I thought if this would help our players see more clearly we would have a chance to make a big breakthrough,” he said in a statement.
Researchers plan to continue working with the baseball team during the upcoming season and start brain-training with the school's women's softball team.
