The influence of auditory information on performance in table tennis

• Main Authors: Katharina Petri, Timon Schmidt, Kerstin Witte
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asociación Española de Ciencias del Deporte 2020-12-01
• Series: European Journal of Human Movement
• Subjects: in-situ table tennis study; hit quality, subjective effort; auditory information; anticipation
• Online Access: https://www.eurjhm.com/index.php/eurjhm/article/view/537

It is well-known that visual information is essential for anticipation in table tennis but it not clarified whether auditory cues are also used. Therefore, we performed two in-situ studies, in which novices (study A) and advanced players (study B) responded to strokes of a real opponent or a ball machine by returning with forehand counters (study A) and forehand top spins (study B) to a given target area on the table. We assessed the parameters “hit quality” and “subjective effort”. In study A, we provided four conditions: normal, a noise-cancelling headphone and earplugs to dampen auditory information, other noise-cancelling headphones and earplugs to remove almost all environmental sounds, and the same head-phones with additional bright noise to remove all sounds. In study B, we performed three tests (irregular play and regular play with an opponent and response to regular balls of a ball machine) under two conditions: normal and noise-cancelling headphones with the additional bright noise. In both studies, no significant differences between all conditions for “hit quality” and “subjective effort” (all p>0.05) were found. We conclude that auditory information, as well as their volume, have no influence on the hit quality in table tennis for novices and advanced players.