Bend it like Beckham -- you can't lose, says study
"LONDON (Reuters) - Goalkeepers and baseball catchers who miss curved or spinning balls coming at them may not be at fault.
Research by a psychologist in Northern Ireland, who tested the ability of athletes to follow the path of balls with spin, said humans cannot anticipate the trajectory.
'The human visual system just isn't equipped to track the curved course of a fast-spinning ball,' said Cathy Craig in New Scientist magazine.
Craig, of Queen's University in Belfast, decided to test the human ability to follow spinning balls after seeing soccer star Roberto Carlos score a goal for Brazil in 1997.
'Everybody seemed to think it was going wide,' she told the magazine. 'Then it curved in at the last minute.'
Craig asked professional athletes watching a virtual reality display to decide whether balls with a spin of 600 revolutions per minute would end up in the goal.
Not even seasoned professionals could predict the ball's trajectory.
Craig said side spin produces a force which speeds the ball in a way that humans are unable to process. Spinning doesn't occur naturally so humans have not been equipped with a visual system that is adapted to it, she added."
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