Perception again

Kicking a football over and between bars is not easy although when you watch American football or Johnnie Wilkinson kicking a rugby ball over the goalposts they seldom seem to miss, yet others often miss

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Which lead some researchers to examine if perception has a lot to do with performance and yes they found performance is indeed influenced both positively and negatively by perception
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They also looked at other sports including golf, cricket, baseball and found similar comments being made by all the athletes

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Cricketers, golfers, baseball players and other athletes often report their targets look bigger on days they play well and smaller on bad days.

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The findings also apply to golfers, who showed in a previous study that they played better when they saw the hole as being bigger.

Most people think of perception as just being about information received by the eye.

If that were the case, then perceived size should not have changed because the optical information specifying the size of the goals posts is constant.

This research shows that perception is about more than just the optical system

The researchers want next to investigate whether watching others perform can affect perception.

For example would watching others fail to score cause the watcher to see the goalposts as narrower and limit their own abilities?

Also what are the differences between the role perception plays for professional athletes who practice the sport more than the average person?

Would visualising the target to be bigger, benefit athletes in their sport?

Again just as we think we know something we realise that there is a lot we do not know

So far all we can really say with confidence is that performance influences perception.