Multimodal perception in table tennis: the effect of auditory and visual information on anticipation and planning of action

Over the last decades, psychological research in sport has predominantly focused on the effects of visual stimulation on people’s anticipation and planning of action, whereas the effects of diverse auditory stimulation has not yet been analysed in detail. Thus, the current study investigated the effects of auditory signals in a first experiment and the perception (visual and auditory stimulation) in a second experiment using a representative sport-specific table tennis task with four conditions (forehand/backhand x with/without auditory perception). In Experiment 1, it was found that table tennis players are able to discriminate table tennis techniques based on their corresponding hitting sounds at better than chance level. The results in Experiment 2 showed that players perform better in a table tennis specific motor task in those conditions in which, in addition to visual information, auditory information was available, as compared to conditions without auditory information (i.e., when players wore headphones). This effect was found for both table tennis experts and novices. The results of both experiments indicate that auditory stimuli have an impact on athletes’ performances.