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1 September 2026: Do men and women see differently when it comes to playing sports?
University of Canberra Master of Optometry students Muskan Sandhu and David Nguyen, under the supervision of Dr Dinesh Kaphle, Associate Professor Mei-Ying boon, Dr Terry Ho, and Emeritus Professor David Pyne, are trying to find the answer with a new study testing various elements of eyesight in male and female cricketers.
Dr Kaphle says physiological, cognitive, and perceptual biological sex differences have been documented in athletes, but it’s unknown if visuospatial function – the perception and integration of spatial and dynamic visual information that supports decision-making and visuomotor control (how the brain integrates visual information to coordinate physical movements) – may contribute to these differences.
Carrying on from a small pilot study, the master’s students are currently recruiting local 18 to 35-year-olds who play cricket, a sport chosen for being interceptive, placing high demands on the visual system due to the speed (balls travel toward batters at up to 145km/h), spatial complexity (with different ball behaviour, such as spin bowling), and temporal demands – or time constraints – in processing ball motion.
Study participants are put through a general eye exam, before undergoing a series of tests – from a simple ruler drop to measure reaction time and hand-eye coordination, depth perception and contrast sensitivity tests, through to the more complex pattern reversal visual evoked potential (PRVEP) test, which measures the electrical signal travelling from the retina through the optic nerve to the visual cortex, and multifocal electroretinogram, which measures the electrical activity of different areas of the retina as the participant watches stimulus on a screen.
The researchers hope the results can contribute to a small but growing pool of studies of female athletes.
“Training or injury prevention programs in sports primarily come from male dominant research, so we want to challenge that,” Dr Kaphle says.
The results could inform better visual training for players, and greater understanding of the role vision plays in motion.
The results of the pilot study were presented at the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV) Symposium in Sydney in July. While it was too small to determine any statistically significant sex differences, Dr Kaphle says it found electrophysiological responses were predictive of playing level – specifically they were more symmetrical between right and left eye among higher-level cricketers.
That raises another question – does better visuospatial function predict better performance, or does playing and training improve visuospatial function?
To register interest in participating in the study, click here.
