10,000 hours again

[John Fairbairn]

We've discussed the 10,000 hours concept many times here. Here's a link to a new angle on it, which coincidentally seems to suggest you can get to a very satisfying level in less than half the time.

It makes reference to the golfer Rory McIlroy. I heard a lovely story about him last week which illustrates once again the brilliant Irish way with words. A friend of my friend was on a course in Ireland with Rory and watched gobsmacked as the master teed off. Then as the ball landed leagues away, he gasped: "Rory hits the ball further than I've ever been on holiday!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26384712

[EdLee]

Thanks, John.

[SmoothOper]

That part about vision and baseball, they say you can't improve vision, but I think that is just a myth perpetuated by eye glass manufacturers, there are eye excercises, that can improve occular coordination and focusing ability, and they resemble focusing on small objects like baseballs at long distances, do that for 10,000 hours, I bet your eye sight will improve.

[Bill Spight]

focusing on small objects like baseballs at long distances, do that for 10,000 hours, I bet your eye sight will improve.

Either that, or you'll go blind!

[Mef]

That part about vision and baseball, they say you can't improve vision, but I think that is just a myth perpetuated by eye glass manufacturers, there are eye excercises, that can improve occular coordination and focusing ability, and they resemble focusing on small objects like baseballs at long distances, do that for 10,000 hours, I bet your eye sight will improve.

Actually when evaluating baseball talent, plate discipline (the ability to discern balls from strikes, and not swing at bad pitches) is known to be one of those things that a prospect must innately have, as you will be unlikely to teach it to them.

[alejo]

That part about vision and baseball, they say you can't improve vision, but I think that is just a myth perpetuated by eye glass manufacturers, there are eye exercises, that can improve ocular coordination and focusing ability, and they resemble focusing on small objects like baseballs at long distances, do that for 10,000 hours, I bet your eye sight will improve.

Though there are exercises for improving eye coordination and focusing... they have their limitations.
First, you should take into account that the eye processes objects 6 meters far away exactly as objects coming from Km of distance. This translates into: trying to switch focus from a baseball 10 meters away to 100m is useless. For this purpose, other sports such as table-tennis are much more recommended.
Focusing ability is severely affected by age, diseases and surgery.
After ruling out diseases, there is no way you can improve your visual acuity beyond your own limits. Visual acuity means the smallest degrees of an angle that your retina is able to differentiate.

[SmoothOper]

That part about vision and baseball, they say you can't improve vision, but I think that is just a myth perpetuated by eye glass manufacturers, there are eye exercises, that can improve ocular coordination and focusing ability, and they resemble focusing on small objects like baseballs at long distances, do that for 10,000 hours, I bet your eye sight will improve.

Though there are exercises for improving eye coordination and focusing... they have their limitations.
First, you should take into account that the eye processes objects 6 meters far away exactly as objects coming from Km of distance. This translates into: trying to switch focus from a baseball 10 meters away to 100m is useless. For this purpose, other sports such as table-tennis are much more recommended.
Focusing ability is severely affected by age, diseases and surgery.
After ruling out diseases, there is no way you can improve your visual acuity beyond your own limits. Visual acuity means the smallest degrees of an angle that your retina is able to differentiate.

The article only mentioned IE 20/13 vs 20/20 which is merely coordination and focusing. Most people can see that far, but it takes them a long time and they have to squint, which means they can improve their vision. I'm sure there are limits though. Also, those are only limitations of cell sizes and lens, people can also improve how they process the information by practicing for example resolving edges at a distance, improving spatial tracking, etc which is more about what they do with the information and how they go about focusing.

[Mef]

Most people can see that far, but it takes them a long time and they have to squint...

Most people can run a mile if they practice...but that does not mean that they can all train to be top level competition athletes. When you are talking about being an "Expert" at a physical activity there are always going to be limitations that may be impossible to work around.

There is a difference between using dedicated practice to reach the limits of your own personal abilities and using it to be the 100-10^-Nth percentile of all people of all physical abilities.

[ez4u]

There are decades of research on vision and performance that are just a click or two away, and of course are ignored in the article. For example, try
"A study of static, kinetic, and dynamic visual acuity in 102 Japanese professional baseball players."
Abstract

Clin Ophthalmol. 2013;7:627-32. doi: 10.2147/OPTH.S41047. Epub 2013 Mar 26.

BACKGROUND:
It seemed that visual functions might have some effects on the performance of baseball players. We measured static, kinetic, and dynamic visual acuity (SVA, KVA, and DVA, respectively) of Japanese professional baseball players to ascertain whether there would be any difference in SVA, KVA, and DVA among player groups stratified according to their performance level.

METHODS:
The subjects were 102 male professional baseball players with a mean age of 26 years who were members of a Japanese professional baseball club from 2000 to 2009. They were stratified into three groups according to their performance level: A (players who were on the roster of the top-level team all the time throughout the study period), B (players who were on the roster of the top-level team sometimes but not all the time), and C (players who were never on the roster of the top-level team). They were interviewed for the use of corrective visual aids, and examined for SVA, KVA, and DVA. The measurements of these parameters were compared among groups A, B, and C. We also investigated and analyzed the association of KVA or DVA with player position (pitchers or fielders) and with hand dominance for batting. KVA was compared between the pitchers and the fielders because they each require different playing skills. DVA was compared between the right-handed and the left-handed batters.

RESULTS:
There was no statistically significant difference among groups A, B, and C. There was a statistically significant difference in KVA between the pitchers and the fielders (t-test; P < 0.05) There was no statistically significant difference in DVA between the right-handed and the left-handed batters.

CONCLUSIONS:
There was no significant difference in the examined visual functions among player groups with different performance levels.

[SmoothOper]

Most people can see that far, but it takes them a long time and they have to squint...

Most people can run a mile if they practice...but that does not mean that they can all train to be top level competition athletes. When you are talking about being an "Expert" at a physical activity there are always going to be limitations that may be impossible to work around.

There is a difference between using dedicated practice to reach the limits of your own personal abilities and using it to be the 100-10^-Nth percentile of all people of all physical abilities.

I agree, but in the example given, I am just pointing out that the fact that the difference in mean vision doesn't imply that the ball players naturally had better vision and were therefore more talented, because the better vision could have been acquired, via the process of training to perform in that role.

[ez4u]

The article below has interesting implications for our repeated discussions on playing by intuition versus thinking/reading things through...

J Sport Exerc Psychol. 2007 Feb;29(1):60-77.
Effects of focus of attention on baseball batting performance in players of differing skill levels.
Castaneda B1, Gray R.
Author information

Abstract
This study addressed the question, what should baseball players focus their attention on while batting? Less-skilled and highly skilled (college) baseball players participated in four dual-task conditions in a baseball batting simulation: two that directed attention to skill execution (skill/internal [movement of the hands] and skill/external [movement of the bat]) and two that directed attention to the environment (environmental/irrelevant [auditory tones] and environmental/external [the ball leaving the bat]). Batting performance for highly skilled players was best in the environmental/external condition and worst in the skill/internal condition. Performance of less-skilled batters was significantly better in the two skill conditions than in either of the two environmental conditions. We conclude that the optimal focus of attention for highly skilled batters is one that does not disrupt proceduralized knowledge and permits attention to the perceptual effect of the action, whereas the optimal focus of attention for less-skilled batters is one that allows attention to the step-by-step execution of the swing[emphasis added].

[alejo]

The article only mentioned IE 20/13 vs 20/20 which is merely coordination and focusing. Most people can see that far, but it takes them a long time and they have to squint, which means they can improve their vision. I'm sure there are limits though. Also, those are only limitations of cell sizes and lens, people can also improve how they process the information by practising for example resolving edges at a distance, improving spatial tracking, etc which is more about what they do with the information and how they go about focusing.

Visual acuity of 20/20 refers to traditional visual acuity (VA from now on). It refers to the minimum difference between two spots that your eye is able to process as being separate. Nothing to do with coordination and focusing. Average person should be able to see 20/20, most people don't (20/20 was actually settled with a Gauss distribution). Squinting makes up for certain diseases. In theory, in a perfect eye, squint vision should not be different than normal vision. Otherwise, there is a disease. Call it myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, 3rd grade cornea alteration, 4rd grade... whatever, something is not perfect and it's most probably going to be a cornea issue.
I've seen people with 20/13 and I'm around 20/16, it's all a matter of eye lenses.

As far as it comes to dynamic VA, I can't really contribute much to the topic since I lack experience on this field.

[SmoothOper]

The article only mentioned IE 20/13 vs 20/20 which is merely coordination and focusing. Most people can see that far, but it takes them a long time and they have to squint, which means they can improve their vision. I'm sure there are limits though. Also, those are only limitations of cell sizes and lens, people can also improve how they process the information by practising for example resolving edges at a distance, improving spatial tracking, etc which is more about what they do with the information and how they go about focusing.

Visual acuity of 20/20 refers to traditional visual acuity (VA from now on). It refers to the minimum difference between two spots that your eye is able to process as being separate. Nothing to do with coordination and focusing. Average person should be able to see 20/20, most people don't (20/20 was actually settled with a Gauss distribution). Squinting makes up for certain diseases. In theory, in a perfect eye, squint vision should not be different than normal vision. Otherwise, there is a disease. Call it myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, 3rd grade cornea alteration, 4rd grade... whatever, something is not perfect and it's most probably going to be a cornea issue.
I've seen people with 20/13 and I'm around 20/16, it's all a matter of eye lenses.

As far as it comes to dynamic VA, I can't really contribute much to the topic since I lack experience on this field.

I don't understand how you can see anything without coordination or focusing. I've always been able to read the bottom line, but one time I had some dry eyes, so I went to the eye doctor, I was not overwhelmed by his knowledge. He spent like thirty minutes trying to figure out if he could prescribe glasses, then gave me some sample eye drops, and didn't discuss anything that could naturally help my dry eyes, from vitamins to warm heat packs(both of which helped, but the eye drops did nothing), the only other thing he could think of was plastic surgery. Lame. Look it up, there are all kinds of exercises for improving eye sight, if you don't get a thorough eye workout in your day to day activities, you might need to practice.

[alejo]

I don't understand how you can see anything without coordination or focusing.

Patients with a single eye lack eye coordination.
Healthy people start losing their focus ability when they are around 40-45 years old. This is the reason why almost everyone in their sixties needs reading glasses. There is a lens inside the eye called crystalline. Part of its job is to focus the image into the retina (posterior part of the eye). Young people have the ability to modify its thickness in order to focus to closer objects. This ability decreases with ageing till focusing ability is close to none. This situation is called presbyopia (wikipedia).
After a while, older people suffer from cataracts (opacification of the crystalline) and this lens is removed. When removed and replaced by an artificial lens, focusing ability is null. Therefore, patients are always focusing on objects in the infinite (over 6 meters). They do all need reading glasses after surgery. Some of them reach 20/20 visual acuity after surgery.

I've always been able to read the bottom line, but one time I had some dry eyes, so I went to the eye doctor, I was not overwhelmed by his knowledge. He spent like thirty minutes trying to figure out if he could prescribe glasses, then gave me some sample eye drops, and didn't discuss anything that could naturally help my dry eyes, from vitamins to warm heat packs(both of which helped, but the eye drops did nothing), the only other thing he could think of was plastic surgery. Lame. Look it up, there are all kinds of exercises for improving eye sight, if you don't get a thorough eye workout in your day to day activities, you might need to practice.

Unfortunately, dry eye is one of the pathologies we lack a cure for. It's one of this common diseases (like a cold or flu) where we can't treat its aetiology. We know factors that cause some dry eye worsening or symptomatic improvement. Vitamins are very controversial. Heat packs do help. Eye drops help a whole lot and there are many different prescriptions... I don't know how to say it in English... not all eye drops have the same ingredients (you'd better try some drops with hyaluronic acid).
As for plastic surgery, it's a possible solution depending on your situation/disease. Tear plugs are another temporary solution...

However, I think we're getting a little bit too far from the topic of a Go forum
Specially in the "General Go Chat"...

[SmoothOper]

I don't understand how you can see anything without coordination or focusing.

Patients with a single eye lack eye coordination.
Healthy people start losing their focus ability when they are around 40-45 years old. This is the reason why almost everyone in their sixties needs reading glasses. There is a lens inside the eye called crystalline. Part of its job is to focus the image into the retina (posterior part of the eye). Young people have the ability to modify its thickness in order to focus to closer objects. This ability decreases with ageing till focusing ability is close to none. This situation is called presbyopia (wikipedia).
After a while, older people suffer from cataracts (opacification of the crystalline) and this lens is removed. When removed and replaced by an artificial lens, focusing ability is null. Therefore, patients are always focusing on objects in the infinite (over 6 meters). They do all need reading glasses after surgery. Some of them reach 20/20 visual acuity after surgery.

I've always been able to read the bottom line, but one time I had some dry eyes, so I went to the eye doctor, I was not overwhelmed by his knowledge. He spent like thirty minutes trying to figure out if he could prescribe glasses, then gave me some sample eye drops, and didn't discuss anything that could naturally help my dry eyes, from vitamins to warm heat packs(both of which helped, but the eye drops did nothing), the only other thing he could think of was plastic surgery. Lame. Look it up, there are all kinds of exercises for improving eye sight, if you don't get a thorough eye workout in your day to day activities, you might need to practice.

Unfortunately, dry eye is one of the pathologies we lack a cure for. It's one of this common diseases (like a cold or flu) where we can't treat its aetiology. We know factors that cause some dry eye worsening or symptomatic improvement. Vitamins are very controversial. Heat packs do help. Eye drops help a whole lot and there are many different prescriptions... I don't know how to say it in English... not all eye drops have the same ingredients (you'd better try some drops with hyaluronic acid).
As for plastic surgery, it's a possible solution depending on your situation/disease. Tear plugs are another temporary solution...

However, I think we're getting a little bit too far from the topic of a Go forum
Specially in the "General Go Chat"...

Baseball players aren't fifty years old. There are plenty of scientific studies related to vitamins and eyes, the fact that eye doctors(all doctors for that matter) continue to perpetuate the myths about vitamins is what you would expect from a two bit drug pusher.

There are ways to help dry eye, and you would think an eye doctor would know about them.