Why swing is effective

[Top_Cat]

Interactive Movie - Curveball - New Scientist

Dunno if anyone's already posted this but it's an interesting effect. They use curveballs in baseball as the example but the principle is the same.

[Burgey]

I knew it - swing is a myth!!!

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Burgey

I knew it - swing is a myth!!!

Thread name: Why swing is effective
Last post by: Burgey

I would have bet my house on that post being a picture of Murray's mints. I'm so disappointed in you.

[Jono]

Yeah, massive let down Burgey

[Burgey]

But this is mythological swing, not the real, cheating English-style swing.

Still a bad miss on my part, I admit.

[pasag]

Poor form

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

Interactive Movie - Curveball - New Scientist

Dunno if anyone's already posted this but it's an interesting effect. They use curveballs in baseball as the example but the principle is the same.

Interesting indeed, but i don't see the relevance with regards to swing?

[duffer]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

Thread name: Why swing is effective
Last post by: Burgey

I would have bet my house on that post being a picture of Murray's mints. I'm so disappointed in you.

Haha nice.

[JimmyGS]

This has nothing to do with swing whatsoever.

[Top_Cat]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

Interesting indeed, but i don't see the relevance with regards to swing?

Originally Posted by JimmyGS

This has nothing to do with swing whatsoever.

You've missed the point.

What the illusion is all about has nothing to do with the movement of the ball and how it occurs but how our brains track a moving object and which part of our eyes we use to perceive/process it. Key point;

The ball appears to swerve because our peripheral vision system cannot process all of its features independently. Instead, our brains combine the downward motion of the ball and its leftward spin to create the impression of a curve.

Line-of-sight (or foveal) vision, on the other hand, can extract all the information from the ball's movement, which is why the curve disappears when you view the ball dead-on.

Owing to the fact you face a baseball or a cricket ball side-on, there's going to be swapping between the processing. So, mid-flight, there's going to be changes in the way your brain perceives the movement/speed of the ball. This means your brain could, for example, exaggerate the degree of movement, perceive a change in its direction where there is none (many batsmen claim a ball swung both ways in flight, for example), make you lose the ball entirely, perceive movement when there was none at all, etc. And, as the illusion demonstrates, it's not just the swapping between processing which causes this; the direction and speed of the spin of the object changes how it's perceived.

It's just an interesting facet of vision and makes the point that not all vision nor how it's processed is uniform. A smart bowler, fielder or captain could figure out how to manipulate this. For example, notice how in the illusion changing the fixation point changes the perception of the ball's movement. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you can simulate something similar by putting a close fielder in the batsman's field of vision. Old tactic and you'd assume it's just a distraction to the batsman but it's obviously more complex than that.

[JimmyGS]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

You've missed the point.

No, you've missed the point.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

The ball appears to swerve because our peripheral vision system cannot process all of its features independently. Instead, our brains combine the downward motion of the ball and its leftward spin to create the impression of a curve.

Line-of-sight (or foveal) vision, on the other hand, can extract all the information from the ball's movement, which is why the curve disappears when you view the ball dead-on.

You don't view a cricket ball with your peripheral vision, thus rendering the whole article irrelevent.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

Owing to the fact you face a baseball or a cricket ball side-on

No you don't. Your body's side on, but your head's not.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

there's going to be swapping between the processing.

No there's not, see above.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

So, mid-flight, there's going to be changes in the way your brain perceives the movement/speed of the ball.

No there's not, see above.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

It doesn't take a genius to figure out you can simulate something similar by putting a close fielder in the batsman's field of vision. Old tactic and you'd assume it's just a distraction to the batsman but it's obviously more complex than that.

This is completely retarded. It would only make any difference if a batsman was for some reason staring straight at the fielder when the ball is bowled. Which obviously never ever happens. Ever.

[Manee]

I'm inclined to agree with Jimmy, here.

[rivera213]

Pile of **** article IMHO.

Let's try to disprove the laws of fluid dynamics while we're at it.

David Wells had a nasty curveball. Just thought I'd say that for no important reason.

[Top_Cat]

Grr, forum ate my post. Anyway, here's the highlights.

Originally Posted by JimmyGS

You don't view a cricket ball with your peripheral vision, thus rendering the whole article irrelevent.

Sorry man, you're way off on this one. You do and it's been a subject of study for years. Here's the earliest example I could find specifically relating to sport;

De Lucia, P., Cochran, E., (1985) Perceptual Motor Skills, 61(1):143-50

Your peripheral vision really has little to do with being side-on because it's all around the eye, foveal vision only being a relatively small point in the centre and able to perceive a narrow band of vision. The bloke who did the illusion, Arthur Shapiro, has written fairly extensively about it. Your brain takes cues from peripheral vision all the time and, in sport, as the ball gets closer to you, your brain uses more perceptual cues from your peripheral vision which, as it turns out, is less precise. It's absoutely unavoidable to use peripheral vision in tracking a moving object.

From the Journal of Vision;

Journal of Vision - Drastically different percepts of five illusions in foveal and peripheral vision reveal their differences in representing visual phase, by Knight, Shapiro, & Lu

An interview Shapiro did with Scientific American

Optical Illusion: Tracking the trajectory of a curveball: Scientific American Blog

Don't take my word for it, do a journal search yourself.

Originally Posted by JimmyGS

This is completely retarded. It would only make any difference if a batsman was for some reason staring straight at the fielder when the ball is bowled. Which obviously never ever happens. Ever.

That was just an example. You don't need to stare at another focal point, a quick look will suffice and obviously it's not going to work every time. Once the ball is in flight, that's all it takes to change the perception of the motion of the ball.

[JimmyGS]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

That was just an example. You don't need to stare at another focal point, a quick look will suffice and obviously it's not going to work every time. Once the ball is in flight, that's all it takes to change the perception of the motion of the ball.

You're trying to tell me that I'm having a quick glance at the fielder while the ball is in flight? Yea good luck with that.

This theory surely all revolves around me looking at something other than the ball when its released. Which I can tell you, from experience, never happens.