Effect of Playing Soccer on the Level of Visual Attention in High School Students

Soccer is a great example of a sport that requires a high performing set of cognitive processes. Though it may vary depending on position, each player must be acutely aware of many players on the opposition and friendly sides at once, as well as the ball. This is why soccer players and players of other similarly interactive sports have been found to score higher on executive function tests. However, these tests, especially those for visual attention, are not standardized. Indeed, there seems to be countless ways to test for visual attention, many of which are not considered very objective. The aim of this study was to optimize the involuntary optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) response as a means to objectively compare visual attention between a group of high school soccer players and a control group that did not play a team sport, meaning one that involves interacting with more than one other person during play. Ten participants for each group were recruited and viewed three different speeds of an OKN square grating at 60, 90, and 120°/sec. It was hypothesized that the soccer-playing group would have a significantly greater OKN frequency and therefore visual attention than the control group. Each participant was instructed to “follow the lines across the screen” and did so three times for each of the three speeds. Each trial lasted for 15 seconds. After all recordings were collected, each trial was cut into a 10 second section, and the completed OKN eye movements of each were then manually counted and the data was analyzed. The null hypothesis that the soccer-playing group did not have a significantly higher OKN frequency was not able to be rejected for the 60°/sec and 90°/sec speeds but was rejected for the 120°/sec speed. This study supports findings that soccer players have significantly greater visual attention than people who do not play team sports.