Gaze Behaviour and Quiet Eye Patterns Across Basketball Competitive Categories with Sex Differences in Binocular Visual Strategies

Background: Visual attention is fundamental to basketball performance, yet how binocular gaze behaviour and oculomotor control vary across age-based competitive categories and between sexes remains unclear. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate differences in binocular gaze behaviour, oculomotor control, and visual allocation strategies across basketball competitive categories and between sexes. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 120 basketball players aged 11–28 years from four competitive categories performed a sport-specific task involving directional changes followed by a free throw. A head-mounted binocular eye tracker recorded fixation, saccadic, vergence, and gaze allocation metrics during the dynamic approach and final aiming phases. Results: In males, fixation duration differed significantly across competitive categories (p < 0.001), whereas in females, fixation and saccade counts differed across categories (p < 0.001). Male players showed higher fixation and saccade counts in Junior and Senior categories, while females exhibited more fixations during final aiming. Strong positive interocular correlations were observed for saccadic length and angular velocity (ρ > 0.86, p < 0.001), and players in Junior and Senior categories showed more stable fixation patterns. Conclusions: Differences in gaze organization, interocular agreement, and visual allocation patterns were associated with competitive category. Sex differences were observed within individual categories; however, these exploratory sex-stratified analyses do not establish that category-related patterns differ between sexes.