Special Issue Psychology

Transferability of Multiple Object Tracking Skill Training to Professional Baseball Players’ Hitting Performance

This study aimed to determine the effects of multiple object tracking (MOT) skill training on elite baseball players. Baseball demands athletes to exhibit a high level of dynamic movement and quick and accurate situational judgment in multiple situations, including offense, defense, and base running. However, current research has not clarified whether the effects of MOT skills training are transferable to baseball performance. We investigated whether MOT skill training influenced baseball hitting performance before and after the intervention. Twelve players from a Japanese professional baseball team participated, and the intervention spanned approximately five months. The MOT skills of all players significantly improved (n=12). Additionally, we assessed the changes in hitting performance following MOT skill training. The results revealed a significant trend toward an improvement in the zone contact rate, zone swing strike rate, and outside swing strike rate in the breaking ball condition, such as the curveball and slider, indicating a large effect size (n=6). Further research across various competition levels is necessary to explore the transfer effects of MOT training on baseball-specific parameters.

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Secondary Publication Psychology

Effect of Multiple Object Tracking Training on Visual Search Strategies

This study aimed to understand changes in visual search strategies before and after intervention, in addition to examining the training effect of multiple object tracking (MOT) skills. Twenty-nine male university baseball players were divided into two groups: a experiment group (EXP, n = 19) and a control group (CON, n = 10). The three-week intervention comprised MOT tasks. Because of the intervention, a significant interaction was observed between the groups, and before and after intervention. EXP Group showed a significant increase in scores on the MOT tasks after intervention compared to those before the intervention. Subsequently, we examined the changes in visual search strategies among six participants with a large training effect (LTE group) and six participants with a small training effect (STE group). Consequently, the gaze travel distance of the post-intervention in the LTE group was short, and the eye’s angular speed between gaze points was large – moderate effect size without a significant difference. These results suggest that MOT skills can be acquired through training for baseball players. Furthermore, we did not observe any clear change in visual search strategies brought about by MOT skill training.

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