Science of balls in motion and their perception

This blog post made me think about how visual perception is so critical to athletes, particularly those that play sports that involved balls in motion. In this post, the author reveals through the study of a particular bending soccer kick that scored a goal in 1997 by Brazil during a match against France. The shot which appeared by all including the goalie to have been moving away from the goal began bending into the goal. The remarkable feat was made more remarkable by the stunned look of the goalie after it had scored. He did not have a lapse in vision, the physics as explained by scientists noted that he was incapable of seeing the bending of the ball as it curved through the air. In short it has to do with the transition of the ball from the goalie's central to peripheral visions. This is explained in this separate post about baseball's notorious break. In the sport of squash, there is fewer instances of balls curving through the air except when the ball is spun off the front or side wall, but it is critical to the player to maintain constant visual contact with the ball as it traverses around the court and off the walls. From what I can gather from the studies of visual perception and from what pros have taught so often, it is the central vision that a player wants to keep the ball trained on.