ABSTRACT
Successful performance in many sports requires a ball to be intercepted using a limb or an instrument such as a racket or bat. Although these interceptive actions are routinely performed during the course of a game, many chapters in this book show that successful performance requires an incredible degree of spatial and temporal accuracy. For example, empirical evidence suggests that skilled performers can estimate the time of arrival of an approaching ball to within ±2 to 3 ms, and its instantaneous direction of motion to within 0.1 to 0.2 degree (Regan et al., 1998). An important question for those interested in the acquisition of skill in such tasks is how performers achieve this degree of spatio-temporal accuracy.
