"We Know It When We See It": A Sports Vision Perspective on Visual Intelligence

Having spent over three decades studying the visual systems of elite athletes—from World Series champions to Olympic medalists—I was immediately drawn to Richard Masland's "We Know It When We See It: What the Neurobiology of Vision Tells Us About How We Think." As someone who has witnessed firsthand how the visual system can make or break athletic performance, Masland's exploration of visual neurobiology connects deeply with the challenges and discoveries I've encountered in sports vision.

I first met Dr Masland when I was organizing the first ever academic sports vision meeting for sports vision specialists at Fenway Park, almost 15 years ago.. His central thesis—that vision is not passive recording but active construction—aligns perfectly with what I've observed in professional athletes who consistently outperform their peers through superior visual processing.

The Architecture of Athletic Vision

Masland's detailed exploration of retinal circuitry immediately brought to mind my work with Major League Baseball players. When he describes how different types of retinal ganglion cells specialize in detecting specific features—motion, edges, contrast—I'm reminded of testing a young shortstop whose career hung in the balance. His visual acuity tested at 20/20, considered "normal" by conventional standards, but his on-field performance was declining. Using our Advanced Vision Testing System (AVTS), which incorporates target size, contrast, and crucially, presentation time, we discovered his weakness: processing low-contrast targets under time pressure.

This connects directly to Masland's discussion of parallel processing in vision. As he explains, the retina doesn't simply transmit raw data—it performs sophisticated computations, sending different types of information along distinct pathways. In baseball, a batter has approximately 100 milliseconds to identify pitch type based on seam rotation—a low-contrast target moving at high speed. The magnocellular pathway, which Masland describes as specialized for motion detection, must work in perfect harmony with the parvocellular pathway's fine detail processing. When this system functions optimally, as in our shortstop after targeted training, the results are remarkable.

Beyond Conscious Perception

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Masland's work is his exploration of unconscious visual processing. He describes experiments showing that people can respond to visual stimuli they claim not to see—a phenomenon that perfectly explains what I witnessed with Manny Ramirez during the 2004 MLB season.

Manny, challenged at the plate despite excellent basic vision, complained of a disconnect between his eyes and hands. Working with our team, we developed training rings with painted baseball spin patterns. Initially, even this twelve-time All-Star found the task challenging. But as Masland would predict, Manny's visual system was processing information far beyond conscious awareness. The rings weren't just training his conscious recognition of pitch types—they were conditioning the unconscious pathways that allow split-second motor responses.

This unconscious processing explains why, as Masland notes, vision can guide action even when we're not consciously aware of what we're seeing. In that pivotal World Series Game 6, Manny's improved visual function didn't just sharpen his conscious vision—they optimized the entire visual-motor pathway, from retinal processing through the dorsal "where and when" stream that guides action.

The Predictive Brain

Masland's discussion of predictive processing in vision particularly resonates with my understanding of elite athletic performance. He describes how the brain constantly generates predictions about incoming sensory data, updating these predictions based on new information. This is precisely what separates elite athletes from weekend warriors.

Consider the example Masland might appreciate: during our work with the 2008 U.S. Olympic team, we discovered that archers—who scored second-best in visual acuity among all sports tested—had remarkably different visual strategies than expected. While their distance vision was exceptional (necessary for identifying targets at 70 meters), their stereoscopic depth perception was actually inferior to boxers. This seeming paradox makes perfect sense through Masland's lens: archers excel at conscious, deliberate visual processing of static targets, while boxers require unconscious, rapid-fire depth judgments for moving opponents at close range.

The predictive nature of vision explains why athletes like Evan Longoria could catch a line drive while facing away from the batter during an interview. His visual system, honed by years of experience, could predict ball trajectory from minimal cues—the sound of contact, peripheral motion, teammate positioning. As Masland explains, this isn't magic; it's the sophisticated predictive machinery of visual processing working at its finest.

Change Blindness and Athletic Attention

Masland's exploration of change blindness illuminates a critical challenge in team sports. He describes how people fail to notice significant changes in their visual field when their attention is directed elsewhere. In basketball, football/soccer, or hockey, this phenomenon can be career-limiting.

During our work with NBA players, we discovered that those with superior multiple object tracking ability—the skill Masland would recognize as distributed attention across the visual field—consistently outperformed teammates in assists, steals, and assist-to-turnover ratios. The brain's limited attentional resources, which Masland describes in detail, must be strategically deployed. A point guard who fixates too narrowly on the immediate defender might miss the subtle movement of a teammate cutting to the basket—a perfect example of change blindness in action.

The Quiet Eye and Visual Fixation

One area where Masland's insights particularly enhance our understanding is the phenomenon we call the "Quiet Eye"—the stable gaze pattern elite athletes maintain just before, during, and after critical motor actions. Masland's description of saccadic suppression (the temporary blindness that occurs during rapid eye movements) explains why this stable fixation is so crucial.

In our studies of NBA free-throw shooting, players with longer, more stable quiet eye periods dramatically outperformed those with erratic gaze patterns. When Masland describes how saccadic suppression temporarily blocks visual input during eye movements, the mechanism becomes clear: any eye movement during the critical moment of ball release would interrupt the visual information flow precisely when it's needed most.

Implications for Training and Performance

Masland's work has profound implications for how we approach sports vision training. His emphasis on the brain's remarkable plasticity—its ability to rewire itself based on experience—validates our approach to targeted visual training. However, his careful scientific methodology also serves as a cautionary tale about overpromising.

As Masland notes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In sports vision, we've seen too many systems promising miraculous improvements without rigorous scientific backing. Our research with 585 MLB players showing correlations between visual function and batting performance required hundreds of subjects to detect meaningful relationships. Masland's scientific rigor reminds us that meaningful training effects require equally rigorous validation.

The Future of Visual Intelligence

"We Know It When We See It" ultimately leaves readers with a profound appreciation for the sophisticated computational machinery underlying seemingly effortless visual perception. For those of us who recognize the importance of vision for best sports performance, Masland's insights point toward exciting future possibilities: better understanding of individual differences in visual processing, more targeted training protocols, and perhaps most intriguingly, the potential for technological augmentation of human visual capabilities.

For any athlete, coach, or sports scientist seeking to understand the visual foundations of peak performance, Masland's work provides essential insights into the neurobiology that makes champions possible. As someone who has dedicated his career to optimizing human visual performance, I can say with confidence: this book illuminates the remarkable science behind what we do when we see—and act—at the highest levels of human achievement.