Perceptual Training in Ice Hockey: Bridging the Eyes-Puck Gap Using Virtual Reality.

Background: Some cognitive and perceptual determinants of sports performance can be arduous to train using conventional methods. In ice-hockey, this is the case for the players' ability to identify the largest exposed area (LEA), i.e., the goal area that is the least covered by the goaltender from a puck perspective. We developed a virtual reality (VR) application to quantify and train the players' ability to identify the LEA from a wide range of shooting positions. Thirty-four professional ice-hockey players were tested. Between two test sessions, half of the players followed a specific feedback-based training (feedback group), whereas the other players practiced without feedback (control group).

Results: For the players of the feedback group, perceptual performance was significantly better after training, whereas it remained unaltered for the players of the control group. For both groups, perceptual performance decreased as the amplitude of the eyes-puck difference (i.e., the difference of perspective between the eyes and the puck) increased. This relationship vanished after training for the feedback group but not for the control group.

Conclusions: We took advantage of VR technology to assess and train the perceptual ability to identify the LEA from a puck perspective, which would be difficult using traditional methods. Only 15 min of specific feedback-based training significantly and substantially improved the perceptual performance of professional ice-hockey players, thereby evidencing the effectiveness of our application for training an important perceptual skill in ice hockey.