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]

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]

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]

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]

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

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]

You've missed the point.

No, you've missed the 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.

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

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.

there's going to be swapping between the processing.

No there's not, see above.

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.

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 ********. 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.

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.

This is completely ********. 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]

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.

 

[Top_Cat]

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.

I guess that's the point of the distraction. Like I said, it usually only has to work once and for a micro-second. Of course, a batsman is going to try to concentrate on the ball as hard as they can. But if the effect I mentioned is bull****, then surely a batsman complaining about people hovering around the sightscreen is even more bull**** (don't think whether the person is moving makes that much of a difference, either)? Feel free to make the point to any batsman who says otherwise, though. I know I will. Whether it's crap or not, they'll at least be annoyed at me which is preferable to them quietly taking runs off me.

And if we're talking about experience, many times I've put someone under the lid at stupid mid-off to a pace bowler on a flat deck where there's been nothing happening. It's amazing how many times batsmen will suddenly start to play and miss or at least look a bit more agitated. TBH, the fielder is far too close to effect any catches nor stop the ball so it's essentially a useless position from that perspective. But in terms of causing a wicket to happen, works more than one would think. Again, tbh, I dunno for sure whether it's due to the focal point effect or just the batsman being annoyed at someone being so close to the bat. Looks like a genius move if it works, though.

EDIT: Not advocating it as a long-term or even a really good tactic. More of a "This guy's looking good and there's nothing in the deck. What the **** do we do now?!" tactic.

 

[Smith]

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

 

[JimmyGS]

But if the effect I mentioned is bull****, then surely a batsman complaining about people hovering around the sightscreen is even more bull**** (don't think whether the person is moving makes that much of a difference, either)?

So you're comparing a still object 90 degrees away from the ball, to a moving object directly behind it, as if they're remotely the same thing?