In cooperation with material scientists from EPFL, we are investigating how expert and naive sportsmen judge new materials and what makes these materials special for their sports. For example, we found that the best ski has a low flexural and a high torsional rigidity (Fischer et al., 2007). Wooden soft ball bats outperform artificial ones (Overney et al. 2010). In addition, we are interested which visual and cognitive skills are crucial for a sport. In tennis players, we found that they are only better for very specific types of motion analysis (Overney et al. 2008). Vision in general was not better than in controls.
Publications
- Overney LS, Michaud V, Fischer C, Heubi J, Veldhuis L, Blanke O, Herzog MH, Månson J-A (2010). Carbon outclasses wood in racket paddles: Ratings of expert and intermediate tennis players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 28(13), p1451-8. [⇒ pdf]
- Overney LS, Blanke O, Herzog MH (2008). Enhanced temporal but not attentional processing in expert tennis players. PLoS ONE, 3(6), e2380.
- Fischer C, Overney LS, Fauve M, Blanke O, Rhyner HU, Herzog MH, Bourban P-E, Månson J-AE (2007). What static and dynamic properties should slalom skis possess? Judgments by advanced and expert skiers. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25(14), p1567-76. [⇒ pdf]