Wearable Eye-Tracking Assessment of Ocular and Oculomotor Dynamics During Repeated Basketball Free Throws

Wearable eye-tracking systems enable the assessment of ocular and oculomotor dy-namics during natural motor activities, although their temporal variation and rela-tionship with performance remain insufficiently understood. This study investigated ocular characteristics during repeated basketball free throws and their association with individual shooting outcomes. Thirty-three basketball players performed 30 free throws while wearing a Pupil Labs Neon eye-tracking system. Following quality con-trol, 936 attempts from 32 athletes were analysed. Pupil diameter, eyelid aperture, blink occurrence, saccade rate, and fixation rate were extracted from pre-release in-tervals. Mixed-effects models examined temporal changes and within-athlete associa-tions with shooting success, applying false discovery rate (FDR) correction. Modest temporal changes were observed: eyelid aperture increased across successive attempts (β = 0.0069 mm/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.047), whereas saccade rate (β = −0.0129 events·s⁻¹/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.007) and fixation rate (β = −0.0112 events·s⁻¹/attempt; FDR-adjusted p = 0.028) decreased. Pupil diameter and blink occur-rence showed no significant temporal changes. None of the five ocular measures was significantly associated with individual shooting success after FDR correction. These

Findings: indicate that wearable eye tracking can detect temporal changes in ocular behaviour during repeated motor performance, although their physiological signifi-cance and potential applications in human monitoring require further investigation.