FYI: Brain thinks faster than the eyes can see

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webbeing

Rookie
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_23201778/uc-berkeley-scientists-pinpoint-how-brain-tracks-fast

"
...
Tennis is even faster. Last May, courtside radar guns measured a serve by British player Samuel Groth at 163 mph.
In that split second, there's a lot of work for the body to do. Eyes must first find the ball. The sensory cells in the retina determine its speed and rush this information to the brain. Then the brain sends messages through the spinal cord that tell muscles in the arms and legs to respond.
"By time the brain receives the information, it's already out of date," said Maus.
..."
 
D

Dimcorner

Professional
That's a bit misleading.

1. He is comparing the average baseball speed to the fastest tennis serve. I think he should use the average of both.

2. I want to say tennis loses more speed than a baseball by the time you make contact. (fuzzy ball and ground impact)

3. Batting 30% means you are pretty good in baseball. Returning 30% of serves means you suck :)

4. Fu Haifeng smashed a shuttle 206mph. Generally you have about 25-30ft of travel before it hits the ground, yes it slows down quite a bit, but seriously, you barely see them coming!

But yes I agree that it's cool that all this stuff can be automatic!
 
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The Meat

The Meat

Hall of Fame
Dimcorner said:
That's a bit misleading.

1. He is comparing the average baseball speed to the fastest tennis serve. I think he should use the average of both.

2. I want to say tennis loses more speed than a baseball by the time you make contact. (fuzzy ball and ground impact)

3. Batting 30% means you are pretty good in baseball. Returning 30% of serves means you suck :)
Click to expand...

30% is pretty good when you are dealing with a big serve that you aren't used to returning or a good placed serve.
 
D

Dimcorner

Professional
I'm counting as an average because the average speed is 90mph in baseball (according to article) and the average bat is about 25%. So this 25% is including stuff slower than 90 as well as faster.

I could be wrong but I don't think returning 30% of all serves (including 2nd serves) is considered good. That would mean that +70% percent of all your serves, including 2nd serves, are won by just aces or bad returns. So just that could guarantee you at least 3 points without even getting a ground stroke in.

Sure a Roddick/Isner/Karlovic serve returns are probably in the 30% or less, but these are not averages.
 
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user92626

user92626

G.O.A.T.
I don't buy it. You can't function without a brain so if there's an inkling of action going that means the brain is processing.
 
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sureshs

Bionic Poster
So basically, the brain extrapolates, i.e. dead-reckons, a future position and uses that to respond quickly.
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
I wonder...
I suspect a trained reaction response is faster than going thru the whole brain process.
A good player knows bounce height on serves. It's left and right he's worried about. Reaction, first response, get's the racket headed in that direction. After than, it's a trained response, no thinking of course, but reacting only to direction.
Timing is a learned response.
 
S

sureshs

Bionic Poster
LeeD said:
I wonder...
I suspect a trained reaction response is faster than going thru the whole brain process.
A good player knows bounce height on serves. It's left and right he's worried about. Reaction, first response, get's the racket headed in that direction. After than, it's a trained response, no thinking of course, but reacting only to direction.
Timing is a learned response.
Click to expand...

Other than reflex actions which bypass the brain, everything else must go through the brain. Anything to do with the eyes must go through the brain.
 
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LeeD

Bionic Poster
An argument certainly can be made the REACTION is something going thru the synapse of the brain.
How else can we explain the fact a trained good player has no problem returning up to 140 heaters he can reach, while a novice just stands there brain frozen?
 
T

TimothyO

Hall of Fame
I've worked with information retrieval systems for unstructured data based on adaptive pattern recognition. Our brains are really good at abstracting complex tasks and environments for purposes of simplification and focus.

For example, lots has been made about Google's self-driving cars. However, take a kid with a smart phone, put him on the side of the road, and have a computer read his facial expression and body language to determine whether or not he notices the car's approach and INTENDS to move into the street. The computer can certainly see and ID a kid (or all sorts of items and even individuals). But the many social communication patterns that we take for granted are still a mystery to computers. The kid may well LOOK at the car but still not SEE the car.

This research makes a certain amount of sense since we didn't evolve in a world of 90mph objects being routine threats or opportunities. Our processing capability is based on a much slower paced environment. Anything beyond that is, literally, a blur and necessarily abstracted by the brain, a task it handles well.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
I've not yet read the link (or much of this thread). However, I would like to point out that the thread title is misleading. Seeing is more than just the conversion of light, by the eyes, into electro-chemical impulses. This conversion along with transmission to the brain and processing by the brain is what constitutes seeing (visual perception). The eyes are more of a receptor and transducer than anything else.

Note that the brain can process sound much quicker than visual images. Simple reaction time for hearing is typically 50ms quicker than simple visual reaction time because of the brain processing needed.
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
Therein lies the controversy regarding loud shrieking as a player hit the ball.

The other just cannot hear the ball at all, leading to a split second slower reaction time.
But YOU know how to return a really fast heater coming at your court from a ATP Pro.
You visualize height of bounce, so head of racket automatically goes there. You TIME the speed of the ball, but you need to experience it first, or something close to that speed.
You only need to SEE left or right, to get the body moving there. Then, your eyes need to judge exact distance you need to travel, but that's the last thing you worry about.
 
user92626

user92626

G.O.A.T.
Leed and guys,

Let me ask you, on returning serves is it good to practice really seeing where the ball bounces? I know on groundstroke that point is really critical.
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
I never thought depth or exact placement was important, because I needed to pick up the ball as it left the racket, possibly before it reached the server's service line area.
1. I already know whether it's a first or second serve, so I know the speed I"m going to deal with and the bounce height, as well as the time I have to get some part of my racket out there.
So, what I need to see is whether it's out right, out left, or into my body. My racket will seek the correct height, based on experience with that server, server's using his style of serve, his height, his power.
I think if I notice the ball bouncing at my service line, it's only to call IN or OUT, nothing else.
A good serve, whether deep or short (can't really be short), will bounce close to the same by the time it get's to my baseline.
OTOH, I never got better than playing A/Open as a B player..:)
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
I seriously doubt any female can have such bloated ego as this LeeD guy. And shaving every day (face), there isn't much estrogen around.
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
I've had a few g/f's thru the years. Most also shave daily, or bi daily. But not their faces.
 
GoudX

GoudX

Professional
webbeing said:
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_23201778/uc-berkeley-scientists-pinpoint-how-brain-tracks-fast

"
...
Tennis is even faster. Last May, courtside radar guns measured a serve by British player Samuel Groth at 163 mph.
In that split second, there's a lot of work for the body to do. Eyes must first find the ball. The sensory cells in the retina determine its speed and rush this information to the brain. Then the brain sends messages through the spinal cord that tell muscles in the arms and legs to respond.
"By time the brain receives the information, it's already out of date," said Maus.
..."
Click to expand...

Thinking and seeing are intertwined. If we simply used the images from the eyes to build a picture of the world we wouldn't achieve anything. A large part of the process of sight is the brain building up a complicated 3D picture of the world and predicting the motion of the objects within it. Trying to separate the images and visualisation is pointless, as the images are completely useless without the interpretation.

On a more trivial note: Samuel Groth is Australian not British.
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
LeeD USED to be a guy.
Now at 64, he's more like a little ole man, shrivelled, stooped, limped, and gimped.
 
S

Sumo

Semi-Pro
sureshs said:
So basically, the brain extrapolates, i.e. dead-reckons, a future position and uses that to respond quickly.
Click to expand...

LeeD said:
I wonder...
I suspect a trained reaction response is faster than going thru the whole brain process.
A good player knows bounce height on serves. It's left and right he's worried about. Reaction, first response, get's the racket headed in that direction. After than, it's a trained response, no thinking of course, but reacting only to direction.
Timing is a learned response.
Click to expand...

These are both how I understand it working.

There was a special (can't remember what channel) where they tested Cristiano Ronaldo for pretty much everything. When doing his reaction response, they simulated a free kick and turedn the lights off just after the kicker made contact and Ronaldo was able to finish on goal every time. It was amazing. I imagine it's the same for tennis players.

As LeeD says, timing is definitely a learned response.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
LeeD said:
Therein lies the controversy regarding loud shrieking as a player hit the ball.

The other just cannot hear the ball at all, leading to a split second slower reaction time...
Click to expand...

Yes, a loud grunt/shriek during the opponent's contact phase could very well impact your RT to the ball contact event. Even tho' sound travels much slower than light, given the distances involved on a tennis court, we can still react to the generation of the sound quicker than the visual. A loud grunt/shriek will also mask the nature of the sound perceived. We can pick up early clues about speed and spin by the nature of the sound produced. Also important to hear how well/cleanly the ball was struck -- did it catch the frame?

user92626 said:
Leed and guys,

Let me ask you, on returning serves is it good to practice really seeing where the ball bounces? I know on groundstroke that point is really critical.
Click to expand...

Why would the serve return be any different from other g'strokes in this respect? Determining the location of the bounce on the serve would be very important IMHO. On serve returns, I sometimes will employ a visual tracking strategy employed by elite cricket batsmen. I (smooth pursuit) track the ball coming off the server's racket for a while to determine the bounce point. Shortly before the ball bounces, I will have my gaze jump ahead to the expected bounce point and lay, in wait, for the ball to bounce there. I believe that this is an example of a jump-ahead saccade.

Once the bounce is perceived, my eyes once again perform a smooth pursuit tracking of the ball for a while. However, as the ball gets very near to the expected contact point, my eyes perform another jump to the contact zone -- my eyes are waiting for the ball to arrive there as I perform my forward swing. I have seen a high-def/slomo video of Federer where it can be seen his gaze gets to the contact zone slightly before the ball does. However, I do not know if Roger or any other pro employs the double gaze jump that I have suggested.

Gaze control studies (by Vickers, I believe) have shown that elite cricket batsmen do, indeed, perform this double-jump tracking scheme. I do not know if any gaze control studies have been done with elite tennis players to determine if they also perform this double-jump tacking pattern. Nonetheless, it is interesting to try to employ the technique to see if helps with serve returns or other g'strokes. It will probably not be easy at first, but may be worth the try.
 
user92626

user92626

G.O.A.T.
SA,

Not only "determine" but I mean actually see where the ball bounces. This is like required because I need to make line call, your mind needs data to guess where your body should move and most critically, in my experience, the eyes need an immediate point for focusing. I mean, I can't see the ball in the strike zone at all if I suddenly set my vision on it.

" Shortly before the ball bounces, I will have my gaze jump ahead to the expected bounce point and lay, in wait, for the ball to bounce there. I believe that this is an example of a jump-ahead saccade."

So you don't really actually see the spot the ball bounces?
 
L

LeeD

Bionic Poster
Personally, I think the judgement call in or out is made by periphery vision.
You watch the ball come off the racket, periphery vision tells you in or out, and while you don't have time to refocus on the ball after bounce, your eyes are on the ball because you didn't waste vision by focusing on the bounce.
Those with extremely great vision can refocus on the ball as it passes your NML, but blind people like me just swing at the blur.
Now against a granny serve, I can see the whole thing coming at me, including the bounce.
Against my peers, there is no chance I can refocus my vision THREE times in that fraction of a second.
I don't care about playing grannies. I DO care about returning 100mph + serves.
 
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