Final fixations, motor performance and an inhibition hypothesis. Mechanisms of the "quiet eye"

Over recent years, it has repeatedly been demonstrated that a longer final fixation (the so-called quiet eye) is beneficial for motor performance. Although this phenomenon has been broadly studied, a satisfying explanation is still lacking. Discussing explanations for the quiet eye benefit, it becomes apparent that contributions from both, cognitive and ecological frameworks, still exhibit conceptual and methodological problems. Therefore, (for a start, for precision tasks) an inhibition mechanism is proposed with the central assumption that the quiet eye shields the processing of performance-relevant cues from interferences. The proposed mechanism proves to be compatible with the current state of research and allows for the deduction of novel predictions.