Wearable Eye-Tracking Assessment of Ocular and Oculomotor Dynamics During Repeated Basketball Free Throws

Wearable eye-tracking systems enable the assessment of ocular and oculomotor dy-namics during natural motor activities, although their temporal variation and rela-tionship with performance remain insufficiently understood. This study investigated ocular characteristics during repeated basketball free throws and their association with individual shooting outcomes. Thirty-three basketball players performed 30 free throws while wearing a Pupil Labs Neon eye-tracking system. Following quality con-trol, 936 attempts from 32 athletes were analysed. Pupil diameter, eyelid aperture, blink occurrence, saccade rate, and fixation rate were extracted from pre-release in-tervals. Mixed-effects models examined temporal changes and within-athlete associa-tions with shooting success, applying false discovery rate (FDR) correction. Modest temporal changes were observed: eyelid aperture increased across successive attempts (β = 0.0069 mm/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.047), whereas saccade rate (β = −0.0129 events·s⁻¹/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.007) and fixation rate (β = −0.0112 events·s⁻¹/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.028) decreased. Pupil diameter and blink occur-rence showed no significant temporal changes. None of the five ocular measures was significantly associated with individual shooting success after FDR correction. These findings indicate that wearable eye tracking can detect temporal changes in ocular behaviour during repeated motor performance, although their physiological signifi-cance and potential applications in human monitoring require further investigation.