Perceptual-cognitive processes in sport: the role of the sports task on quiet eye

The present doctoral thesis dealt with a relevant perceptual-cognitive factor within the sports domain, called "quiet eye" (QE). The literature on this topic described the QE as an ocular fixation that could be considered a hallmark of superior expertise and performances across several sports requiring aiming tasks. Indeed, several characteristics of the QE (e.g., earlier onset and a longer quiet eye duration) correlate with greater athletes' expertise and best performances. In addition, QE training positively affects task performance. Despite 25 years of research on QE, there is still no agreement about the QE function that could explain the relationship between this fixation and the highest levels of sports expertise and performance. On this basis, the present doctoral thesis aimed to comprehend, through four different studies, the QE underlying functions by exploring novel aiming tasks and manipulating well-known sports tasks in the QE literature. On the whole, the findings of the four studies suggest that the acquisition of environmental visual information through the QE occurs at different times during the ongoing action, according to the kinematical and timing specificity of the task. Therefore, the difference in QE timing between tasks should represent a different underlying function. The results reported in the present doctoral thesis seem consistent with the speculation of Lebeau et al. (2016), who suggested that the specific role of the QE could depend on the type of sports task. Besides the research value, the findings of the present doctoral thesis have important implications from an applied point of view. The literature showed that QE training protocols permit novices the acquisition of a "like an expert" gaze behavior. On the one hand, the results of the present doctoral thesis stretched the relevance of establishing a QE prototype specific to the task before implementing any QE training protocols to non-experts, following Vickers's (2016) guidelines. On the other hand, the results reported suggest that the QE training protocols should also be applied to expert athletes to permit the transfer of the QE characteristics to complex game conditions, allowing athletes to perform successfully, regardless of the trickiness of the sport situation.