ABSTRACT
Because the PERCEPTION of others’ intentions and behavior is so crucial in sports, eye movement is important, both to communicate visual information and to deliver/receive social signals. So much of sport is conducted in the absence of speech that alternative means of communication are habitually employed. Eye movement is one element of a whole repertoire of BODY LANGUAGE that comes to the fore in any contest. The pattern of glances in everyday life is closely coordinated with
speech; whereas in sports it is often coordinated with nonverbal gestures. A tennis player may raise an arm in apology for a winning letcord shot, but the import is lost unless it is accompanied by eye contact for a few seconds. During a game, staring directly downwards or glancing only occasionally at an opponent is coded-along with hunched posture and a sagging head-as negative body language. Maintaining eye contact with an opponent for prolonged periods of time is an integral part of positive BODY LANGUAGE, according to research on tennis players by Iain Greenlees et al. Teammates in many sports use glances to collect information from
each other and to make affiliative contact through the course of a contest. In any sport, a glance, followed by an exaggerated blink and a turn away signals contempt or ridicule. Perhaps the most interesting eye movement in sports is the mutual
fixation, better known as ‘‘eyeball-to-eyeball,’’ or just ‘‘eyeballing,’’ the latter sometimes meaning a one-way stare. This involves two rivals simultaneously orienting their eyeballs so that the projection of the viewed object-in this case, the other’s pupils-falls on the fovea (the tiny depression at the back of the eye) and stays in focus. If we could draw lines from both subjects’ pupils to the objects of their gaze, there would, in theory be just two lines rather than four, as the fixation point for each would be the other’s pupils. Mutual fixations, or ‘‘mutual gazes,’’ occur during everyday con-
versation, though rarely for more than 30 percent of the interaction and hardly ever for more than five seconds. More typically, eyes dart over the other’s facial features, dwelling for about 0.3 seconds on each, perhaps longer on the mouth; this jerky screening movement is
known as a saccade. Fixation contact, by contrast, is for several seconds, demonstrates interest and an increase in AROUSAL, suggesting that an important message is being communicated. In sports, the fixation is a barely coded social signal: a threat designed to elicit agitation, FEAR, and alarm in the opponent. A rival who does not or cannot respond by fixing eyes will be ‘‘stared-down’’ and forced to concede a perhaps small, but symbolic defeat either before or during a contest. In boxing, it became a popular PSYCHING technique. There is no empirical evidence that dominance in an eye-movement
encounter necessarily translates into competitive dominance, and its value may be concomitant rather than direct. For example, the opponent who breaks off the fixation and looks at a rival’s shoulders or away completely may do so because of an unwillingness to break CONCENTRATION on the actual COMPETITION and not because of intimidation. The dominant eye-mover, on the other hand, may interpret this as a significant victory in the psychological battle that accompanies the actual competition; that interpretation will enhance his or her SELF-CONFIDENCE. Today, when eyeball-to-eyeball fixations are so commonplace as to be ritualistic, some athletes refuse to engage in them and, instead, grin mockingly, sending out another signal: ‘‘I’m not getting involved in this nonsense; I just want to get on with the business.’’ The question remains: Why should eye movement carry the
potential to evoke such powerful behavioral and EMOTIONAL reactions? Human infants respond to fixed eye contact as young as four weeks, allowing the parents to employ a gaze or stare as a simple yet effective form of CONTROL and DISCIPLINE. Through maturity, the child learns to decode other meanings for fixed eye contact. He or she learns that paying ATTENTION is accompanied by mutual gazing: ‘‘Look at me when I’m talking to you!’’ Later, the value of mutual fixation in demonstrations of affection may appear: ‘‘They stared deeply into each other’s eyes.’’ The STIMULUS properties of eyes in signaling sexual attraction are, of course, great. Winking, staring and even self-consciously averting one’s gaze are all strategies of courting rituals, though they are used in different ways in different cultures-as are eye movements generally. Referees also look for eye movements in athletes. In boxing,
referees famously look into a fighter’s eyes to ascertain his (or her) condition. This is a spurious technique: there are no reliable ocular indicators for determining the boxer’s overall physical condition. Referees rarely disclose what they are looking for, though they sometimes report a ‘‘glazed look.’’ A boxer under pressure is likely to
fix his sights on the opponent rather than the referee, perhaps misleading the official to conclude that he or she cannot FOCUS. In soccer, players can be cautioned for ‘‘dissent’’ if a referee interprets a look as signaling disagreement with a decision. Baseball umpires are less sensitive and habitually engage in mutual fixations with managers.
