M.Phil. / Vision is the most dominant of the five senses and plays an important role in our daily lives. The sensory information obtained through vision is of utmost importance in the way we perceive and respond to the world around us. Vision has often been neglected when evaluating the performance of athletes. Would you be able to catch a ball with your eyes closed, more than likely not? This example indicates the necessity of vision to perform specific motor tasks, such as is required in sports. Anatomically there are differences between the male and female body and therefore a variance in performance should be expected. The fact that visual skills can be leamed or even taught brings about the question of what effect age, gender and experience have on the performance of an athlete on these specific visual skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the variations between male and female visual skills measured during a sports vision evaluation. A protocol was devised to create a set of norms for the athletes tested and these norms were then compared to previous norms set out for elite athletes. In this study 209 female and 251 male non-elite athletes were tested. The subjects varied between the age of 18 and 19 and were in their first year of study at the then Rand Afrikaans University, now known as the University of Johannesburg. The study indicated that a significant difference in performance between the gender groups does exist and that separate norms should indeed be used when evaluating male and female athletes. The female athletes performed better on the Visual Acuity and Colour vision tests, with the male athletes performing better on the Contrast Sensitivity Row E, Fusion Flexibility, Eye-Hand Coordination Pro and Re Action, Eye-Body Coordination, Visual Reaction Time Right and Left hand, Visual Adjustability Left and Right Base positions and Visualization tests. Equal performance was achieved in the Contrast Sensitivity Row A; B, C and D, Stereopsis and Visual Adjustability Up and Down Base position tests. It is thus clear that the males performed better on most of the tests done.

D.Phil. (Optometry) / Vision is a learned skill that implies an appropriate interpretation of what is seen and interpreted (Abel, 1999). Neural pathways are established as a result of learning, strengthened by achieving a task goal and grow stronger as practice progresses (Edelman, 1992). According to Davis, Kimmet and Auty (1990) it takes 500 hours of practice to change a skill and use that skill competently during competitions. Therefore, training sessions should be structured around learning the perceptual and cognitive skills needed for successful decisions in different environments (Vickers, 2007). Four elements - skill execution, concentration, response time and decision-making - were identified and are known to have a great effect on overall sports performance (Coffey and Reichow, 1995; Erickson, 2007 & Vickers, 2007). A reliable model that could be used to evaluate performance levels by applying these four cardinal elements of performance has been developed through this study. Twenty five rugby players participated in the study which was conducted over a period of three years. The sample was divided into four groups of which three were experimental and one was a control group. Two of the three experimental groups, who came from different regional teams, had specific visual training in the national side. The third experimental group had off-season visual training only and the control group had no visual training at all. Two methods were used to evaluate performance: in the first method three independent top class raters conducted the performance evaluation and the second was based on data collection. Both methods involved the Verusco© system. The results indicated a poor correlation among the raters: two of the three raters agreed that Group 4 (Regional team B, that played for the national side and had specific visual training) performed significantly better than Group 3 (Regional team B that had no visual training) in decision-making during season 1 and Group 1 (Regional team A) showed a significant improvement in skill execution from season 1 to season 2. Group 1 (Regional team A) had non–specific off-season visual training. Groups 2 (Regional team A, that played for the national side) and 4 (Regional team B, that played for the national side) received specific visual training and Group 3 (Regional team B) had no visual training at all.