Ivan
6B
Science
14/3/12
Title of Article: Get Me out of This Slump: Visual Illusions Improve Sports Performance
Author(s) of Article: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.
Source of Article: Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120313121729.htm
Date of Article: 14/3/12
Summary: This article is about how basketball (college basketball) players can improve their chances of making free throws. They can imagine that the basket is bigger than it actually is! These are the words of a psychological scientist Jessi Witt about how athletes feel when they perform well, she studies the performance of difference athletes and how they can improve it: "You hear about athletes making these comments like, oh, I was playing so well, everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion,". She says it is one of the ways to improve your performance, and visualizing things (optical illusions) is another one. She and some others made an experiment, they made an optical illusion with a golf hole and projected smaller holes around it, so the hole looks bigger, and then with the same hole, they projected larger holes so the hole looked smaller. 36 college students tried 10 times and they got the gold ball in 10% in with the effect of the “bigger” hole than the effect of a “smaller” hole.
This discovery can help many athletes, not only basketball players because it can improve their chances of scoring a free throw, hitting a ball, etc. I think this discovery is important because it can influence successes for athletes which use this optical illusion method. I found this article on a reliable resource: www.sciencedaily.com used for finding science-related current events. I know this website is a good place for finding science-related current events because it features excellent articles (my opinion). If some athletes (probably basketball players) read this article, it will most likely improve their chances of getting their point for a free-throw or hitting a ball in a tight situation. When I finished reading this article, I felt happy because now, more players would fulfill their goals in sports. I felt this article can also help me because I like playing basketball.
