Recent research published in journals sensing provide evidence that people who play outdoor sports have better color detection abilities in their peripheral vision compared to indoor athletes and non-athletes. This suggests that intense exercise training in large, open environments can physically shape and improve basic visual skills. The findings show that the adult brain retains the ability to adapt low-level sensory functions based on real-world experiences even after childhood development has ended.
The human eye has a specific biological structure that determines how well certain things can be seen. The center of the visual field is packed with specific light-detecting cells that process bright light and rich colors. As the line of sight moves toward the outer edge, which scientists call retinal eccentricity, the eye naturally becomes less sensitive to color and fine detail.
Because of this natural biological limit, people typically move their eyes to bring important objects into the center of focus. In fast-paced sports, players cannot always directly see every moving teammate, opponent, or ball. They rely heavily on their side vision to monitor their surroundings and predict game movements.
Scientists wanted to understand whether this constant reliance on lateral vision actually changes the way the eyes and brain process visual information over time. This concept is known as perceptual learning, and refers to permanent improvements in how the brain perceives sensory information after repeated exposure and practice. Previous studies of motor vision have typically measured overall performance, such as reaction time or the body’s ability to hit a moving target within a limited time frame.
The researchers designed this new study to isolate pure visual perception. They specifically wanted to test whether athletes literally perceive the colors in their surroundings better than non-athletes, rather than just reacting faster to the colors in their surroundings. They reasoned that athletes who play on large outdoor fields may develop stronger peripheral color vision to compensate for the natural decrease in color sensitivity at the corners of the eye.
“This debate is an ancient one: nature vs. nurture. It is commonly thought that basic functions such as color perception are hard-coded into our brains, as if we were born with them. But along with other research, we We provide evidence that this is not the case. Our brains are plastic to some extent and can be improved through intensive training,” said Matteo Toscani, senior lecturer at Bournemouth University and co-director of the Bournemouth Institute of Perception.
“While I am interested in color vision and visual plasticity in general, the specific idea of testing athletes while comparing indoor and outdoor sports was suggested by first author Sidney Euden-Taylor, a student in my lab who also conducted this study.”
Researchers recruited 26 college participants to complete a visual test. The sample included 8 outdoor athletes, 9 indoor athletes, and 9 non-athletes. The athletes had all participated in their respective sports for at least three years and trained an average of four and a half hours per week.
During the experiment, participants sat in a dark, soundproof room and stared at a cross in the center of a computer monitor. The scientists presented visual stimuli on a screen for just 250 milliseconds. These quick flashes were displayed on the left or right side of the screen at a specific angle away from the center, so that participants could not see the flash directly.
The flashing images were either small pictures of people or simple circles. The researchers adjusted a simple circle to have exactly the same number of pixels and the same average color as the person. The background of these images displayed either an indoor blue sports venue or a grassy outdoor pitch.
Participants pressed a specific keyboard key to indicate whether the hidden object appeared on the left or right side of their visual field. To precisely measure their sensory limits, the researchers used a special computer program to constantly adjust the visibility of objects. They achieved this by blending the target object with the background image, making the image appear slightly transparent.
If the participant answered correctly, the program would cause the object to fade slightly into the background in the next round. This adaptive method allowed scientists to find the exact contrast threshold at which a person can barely distinguish objects from the background. Each participant completed 1,920 individual trials during a 2-hour session.
The data revealed that outdoor athletes were significantly better at detecting ambient color than indoor athletes and non-athletes. Outdoor athletes needed almost one-third less color contrast to successfully spot objects at the edge of the screen. This shows that their visual system is highly sensitive to subtle visual cues in the periphery.
Scientists also discovered that there is an interaction between the shape of the object and the type of background. Participants were equally well able to spot human figures and simple circles when they appeared in the background of indoor sports. However, when the human figure was displayed against a visually complex outdoor grass background, it became significantly less visible.
Despite this difficulty, the visual benefits common to outdoor athletes persisted under all conditions. They outperformed the other groups even when shown a simple circle on an indoor sports background. This suggests that the visual improvements derived from outdoor sports are not limited to familiar sports environments but extend to general situations as well.
Scientists noted that outdoor sports such as soccer and rugby are played on large fields, requiring players to constantly monitor large, unpredictable spaces. Indoor sports are fast-paced but take place in smaller, more enclosed areas. This result suggests that the expansive nature of outdoor sports provides the extra visual training needed to enhance peripheral color perception.
“If color vision is plastic, even people born with defects in color perception may be able to exceed their innate limits through interaction with the environment,” Toscani told PsyPost. “Evidence for this comes from studies in color-blind individuals (e.g., Boehm et al., 2014). Our results suggest that outdoor athletes require almost one-third less contrast, and therefore stimulus visibility, to effectively detect peripheral stimuli than non-athletes and indoor athletes. This likely reflects an adaptation to training in large open fields.”
“We found this effect in peripheral vision. We believe that the reduced performance is due to anatomical constraints, from the structure of the eye to the way visual information is projected to and processed by the brain. The very fact that peripheral vision is relatively poor makes it difficult for us to move our eyes and see objects. That’s why they bring their bodies into their high-resolution central vision. Outdoor athletes probably don’t need to do it as much as we do because they have better peripheral color. Perhaps their brains are adapted to accurately monitor events that occur in their periphery.”
Although the findings of this study demonstrate the benefits of outdoor training, readers should avoid assuming direct cause-and-effect relationships. There is a correlation in this study because the scientists looked at naturally occurring groups of athletes and non-athletes.
“This study is consistent with the idea that outdoor training improves peripheral vision, which was the main focus of our investigation, but this type of research is still correlational,” Toscani noted. “We couldn’t experimentally manipulate training experience. For example, we couldn’t randomly assign children to indoor sports, outdoor sports, or no sports for 10 years and then assess their visual acuity.”
It’s still possible that people with naturally good peripheral vision are simply drawn to outdoor sports from a young age. Another potential factor is the overlap in athletic activity outside of formal competition, which could cloud the data. For example, outdoor athletes may play indoor sports during the off-season, but researchers did not formally track this activity.
Scientists are already looking ahead, planning to use immersive technology to display objects even more peripherally to human vision. “I applied for a BBSRC grant to support further research into how vision in adults can be modified through gamified training in virtual reality environments,” said Toscani.
The study, “Athletes are better at detecting peripheral colors,” was authored by Sidney Youden-Taylor, Anna Metzger, and Matteo Toscani.
