Effect of sports background on the visual and vestibular signal processing abilities of athletes

Objectives. - In the case of athletes, high-level of stability skills are exceptionally important for the precise and successful execution of complex movements. We hypothesized that the sports background substantially affects how the individual relies on the inputs from the visual and the vestibular systems. Equipment and methods. - We have gathered data from a sample containing individuals from sports in which rotating and spinning movements are dominant for the trunk and the head, and from another sample in which these are not dominant. We have measured the stability properties of the athletes with mixed vertical rotation and eyes open and closed tasks. During the data acquisition, we observed the center of mass movement properties (anterior-posterior, left-right, distance, area). Results. - Based on our results we conclude, that in the case of sports, that contain a substantial magnitude of head and trunk rotations, the role of the visual input is significantly greater in the stability, than the role of the vestibular input, as for sports with less head and trunk spinning and rotating movements, the opposite is true. Therefore, we recommend that in the case of sports, that contain a lot of rotational movements, the presence of visual feedback should be emphasized during the training sessions. (c) 2022 Les Auteurs. Publi ' e par Elsevier Masson SAS. Cet article est publi ' e en Open Access sous licence CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).