Bishop’s University

Dr. Fabian Romero Clavijo and Dr. Maxime Trempe on Radio-Canada: “Baseball Québec flirte avec la réalité virtuelle”

Dr. Fabian Romero Clavijo is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bishop’s University, where his research focuses on understanding the variables influencing visual perception in sports and training to enhance decision-making. His postdoctoral fellowship provides opportunities to collaborate with supervisors Dr. Maxime Trempe and Thomas Romeas, who are specialists in this domain. Together, they aim to identify factors that affect perception in baseball players and test training methods to improve on-field performance.

Dr. Fabian Romero Clavijo smiling at the camera.
Dr. Fabian Romero Clavijo

Their pilot study, involving experienced baseball players, tested the efficacy of different training protocols on the ability to “read the ball” and make swing decisions. Given the small sample size used in this study, rather than claiming significant improvement, Dr. Romero Clavijo suggests that the preliminary results indicate a tendency toward a beneficial effect of virtual reality (VR) training. These results have opened new research avenues, with the next goal being to replicate the study with a larger sample, allowing for confirmation of the preliminary findings. Additionally, they plan to investigate not only whether the training protocols improve decision-making but also if they enhance the quality of batting movements—specifically, the technique. They will also explore the effectiveness of these training methods across different levels of expertise. 

Dr. Maxime Trempe, smiling at the camera in a lab.
Dr. Maxime Trempe

As noted in their publication, VR enables the simulation of game-like batting situations that are difficult to replicate in real-life practice. In traditional training, pitchers are limited in the number of pitches they can throw each day or week, which restricts batters’ opportunities to face live pitchers. Consequently, coaches often use batting practice alternatives like t-ball, toss ball, and pitching machines, but these methods do not accurately represent the dynamics of a pitcher-batter matchup. Thus, VR serves as a unique tool to reproduce those characteristics.

Players’ first impressions indicate that the virtual environment closely simulates real batting situations, particularly regarding pitchers’ kinematics, field representation, and ball speed. However, players have expressed two main criticisms of the virtual environment. First, the virtual ball lacks realistic rotation, which is crucial for identifying pitch types and generating appropriate motor responses. Second, players miss the haptic feedback experienced during real-life contact between the bat and the ball. 

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