Tall people better at sport because of superior spatial awareness, study finds – Telegraph.co.uk

Trials found that tall people maintained this superior ability even when they were sitting down and their shorter counterparts were standing on a box or a stool, showing that the advantage is somehow “hardwired” in the brain.

Researchers at Ohio State University asked 24 participants – 12 tall and 12 short – to predict distance in a fully lit room, in the pitch dark with a green light as a target, and in a partially lit room with dim red reference markers either on the floor or ceiling.

The subjects were asked to walk to and point out the location of the target after the light had been turned off.

While tall subjects’ responses were not perfectly accurate, they fared far better overall than short participants when it came to assessing the location of targets that were further away.

Researchers have long favoured the theory that people rely most heavily on the position of the ground to help them determine the distance between objects.

Teng Leng Ooi, professor of optometry at Ohio State said: “If you’re looking at two traffic cones about 50 feet away, the distance between the two will be more apparent from a six-foot eye height than from a four-foot eye height.

“We are really reliant on the ground, so maybe through evolution our brains have taken this factor into account.”

Professor Ooi said more research was needed to determine for certain why taller people had better special awareness of objects, and said the “jury was out” on whether the advantage extended to women who always wear high heels.