![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/inesxt.jpg\")
DURHAM, N.H. — It looks so simple – catching a fly ball.
\n But of all of the balls hit into the outfield, the straight shot is the
\n most difficult to catch. And if it’s twilight, it’s even worse.<\/p>\n
Ken Fuld, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, studies
\n visual psychophysics. A former assistant baseball coach at UNH with a son
\n playing for one of the Chicago Cubs minor league teams, Fuld says there’s
\n more than meets the eye to catching fly balls and hitting pitches for the
\n boys of summer.<\/p>\n
"An outfielder is computing a collision course between the ball and
\n the fielder in much the same way as a bird of prey tries to intercept another
\n bird also in flight for its meal or an insect tries to contact a member
\n of the opposite sex for the purpose of mating. These are all forms of what
\n vision scientists call visually guided behavior. Fielders must figure out
\n the trajectory of the ball and combine that with information about their
\n own movement in a way that requires a quick initial calculation of this
\n information and then constant updating of information to correct for slight
\n errors," Fuld says..<\/p>\n
from a University of New Hampshire press release<\/a><\/p>\n The Dowbrigade, back in his Little League days, DURHAM, N.H. — It looks so simple – catching a fly ball. But of all of the balls hit into the outfield, the straight shot is the most difficult to catch. And if it’s twilight, it’s even worse. Ken Fuld, … Continue reading
\n used this incredible cognitive ability to quickly analyze the trajectory
\n of fly balls to predict where they would come to earth AND THEN AVOID
\n THAT SPOT LIKE THE PLAGUE, as even a casual familiarity with the laws
\n of physics shows that a falling object accelerates at 9.8 m\/s\/s until
\n reaching a terminal velocity equal to 2 times the weight divided by the
\n drag coefficient times the density of the air times the frontal area
\n of the object, and even a casual familiarity with a baseball shows
\n that they are HARD…….<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"