There's a lot more to the phrase "Keep your eyes on the ball!" The 80 Percent Mental Blog shares the latest results on the study by PLOS ONE on the visual perception of athletes. So, though we have always known that the batter that keeps their eyes on the ball often gets more hits, eye study results reveal more detailed information.
One of the things, we know more about is "Dynamic visual acuity (DVA), the optometrist’s name for this skill, is the ability to pick out details of either an object in motion while our head stays still or a stationary object while our head moves" An athlete's dynamic-object DVA and static-object DVA help him to accumulate visual information. There are other components that make up the athlete's visual acuity that help some batter's nail those fast balls.
One interesting recommendation from researchers is for sport-specific vision training to build dynamic visual acuity which could improve hitting skills. "Eye movement tasks could be useful additions to perceptual training programs for baseball and might potentially provide useful tools in assessing and recruiting athletes.”
Find out more: How Our Eyes Actually Track A Fastball
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