It is well-known that visual information is essential for anticipation in table tennis but it not clarified whether auditory cues are also used. Therefore, we performed two in-situ studies, in which novices (study A) and advanced players (study B) responded to strokes of a real opponent or a ball machine by returning with forehand counters (study A) and forehand top spins (study B) to a given target area on the table. We assessed the parameters “hit quality” and “subjective effort”. In study A, we provided four conditions: normal, a noise-cancelling headphone and earplugs to dampen auditory information, other noise-cancelling headphones and earplugs to remove almost all environmental sounds, and the same head-phones with additional bright noise to remove all sounds. In study B, we performed three tests (irregular play and regular play with an opponent and response to regular balls of a ball machine) under two conditions: normal and noise-cancelling headphones with the additional bright noise. In both studies, no significant differences between all conditions for “hit quality” and “subjective effort” (all p>0.05) were found. We conclude that auditory information, as well as their volume, have no influence on the hit quality in table tennis for novices and advanced players.

中文翻译：

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听觉信息对乒乓球成绩的影响

众所周知，视觉信息对于乒乓球的预期是必不可少的，但尚不清楚是否也使用了听觉线索。因此，我们进行了两项现场研究，其中新手（研究 A）和高级球员（研究 B）通过正手反击（研究 A）和正手上旋（研究B) 到桌子上给定的目标区域。我们评估了参数“命中质量”和“主观努力”。在研究 A 中，我们提供了四种条件：正常，降噪耳机和耳塞可抑制听觉信息，其他降噪耳机和耳塞可消除几乎所有环境声音，以及具有额外明亮噪音的相同耳机可消除所有声音。在研究 B 中，我们在两种情况下进行了三项测试（不规则比赛和与对手的常规比赛以及对球机的常规球的反应）：正常和降噪耳机以及额外的明亮噪音。在这两项研究中，均未发现“命中质量”和“主观努力”的所有条件之间存在显着差异（均 p>0.05）。我们得出结论，听觉信息及其音量对新手和高级运动员的乒乓球击球质量没有影响。