The Perception & Action Podcast

What are the potential advantages of using virtual environments (VE) to train and study sports skills? How should a VE be evaluated? How important is fidelity, presence, and cost? When is the best time to use a VE in relation to skill level and physical training? Why haven't VE's been more widely adopted?   Articles/links: A review of virtual environments for training in ball sports Understanding...

A discussion with Gerard Jones, Head of Coaching at Bristol Rovers Football Club. We discuss topics including developing decision making skills in players through improved communication, how to handle regional differences in sports vocabulary, encouraging different levels of knowledge in players, and how to balance player and coach development.   More information about my guest: http://www.gerards...

How important is feel or body awareness in sports?  How can we assess kinaesthetic sensitivity and proprioceptive acuity in athletes and can these be improved through training? How does it influence an athlete's ability to implement technical changes?   Articles: Level of competitive success achieved by elite athletes and multi-joint proprioceptive ability Exploring the kinaesthetic sensitivity of...

How well can we integrate samples from a visual scene (e.g. when an outfielder is trying to catch a fly ball and has to look from the ball to the wall and back)? How long of a view do we need and what interval between samples can we tolerate? Does training to perform under such intermittent conditions result in improvements and transfer to performance in full vision conditions?   Articles: Intermi...

News: A look at a few recent articles in the area of motor learning and performance. Can skill execution be improved by combining self and expert models in video feedback? How do combat athletes using affordance to control interpersonal distance? How can we determine the degree to which the decisions made by teammates are coordinated?   Articles: Innovative Video Feedback on Jump Landing Improves...

A discussion with Stephanie Rossit, Lecturer in Psychology from the University of East Anglia in the UK. We discuss perceptual and action related deficits in visual neglect, brain areas associated with online and offline control of action, her recent work with patient DF that challenges some well know previous findings, and her research examining ways to rehabilitate neglect patients.   More infor...

A discussion with Damian Farrow. Professor of Skill Acquisition at Victoria University in Melbourne Australia. We take a step by step look at practice design discussing how to determine the goals of practice, how to effectively manipulate constraints, how to achieve the right balance of practice variability, how to effectively use instruction and feedback, and things an athlete should do when off...

A discussion with Jenelle Gilbert, Professor in the Department of Kinesiology, California State University Fresno.  We discuss the importance of mental skills training in sports and beyond, her concept of the Psychological UNIFORM, using a Game Plan format to teach mental skills and her recent research looking at the stressors faced by coaches.   More information about my guest: http://www.fresnos...

A discussion with Bruce Hoyer, Martial Arts Coach at the Next Edge Academy in South Dakota. We discuss how Bruce has employed a variety of different ideas from sports science research in his coaching including using a flipped classroom, observational learning, giving feedback and reducing interference in motor learning.   More information about my guest: https://www.nextedgeacademy.com/bruce-hoyer...

What do we mean when we say an athlete is "in the flow"? How often does it occur? What brings it on? Can we control it?  How does it relate to "psychological momentum" and performance?   Articles/links: A systematic review of the experience, occurrence, and controllability of flow states in elite sport The relation of flow-experience and physiological arousal under stress — Can u shape it? Underst...

A discussion with John Kiely, Senior Lecturer in Elite Performance from the University of Central Lancashire. Topics discussed include the evolution of theories of stress, anxiety and injury, the role of psycho-emotional factors in the stress process and designing supportive training environments to increase athlete buy-in.   More information about my guest: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/staff_profiles/j...

News: Listener picks for articles to review including more research on the effect of variability on motor learning, attention training to reduce the effects of stress on performance and the effect of explicit instructions.   Articles: High variability impairs motor learning regardless of whether it affects task performance The effects of attention training techniques on stress and performance in s...

A discussion with Harri Mannonen, basketball coach based in Kouvola, Finland. Topics discussed include: why is it useful for coaches to look at basketball as a complex system, what is the best way to add variability to practice and what is the role of conscious control in sports.   More information about my guest: https://harrimannonen.com/ https://twitter.com/harrimannonen   More information: htt...

How can we apply the principles of perceptual learning to improve information pickup on the sports field?   Articles/links: Applying perceptual learning to achieve practical changes in vision Improved vision and on field performance in baseball through perceptual learning When less is more: Reduced usefulness training for the learning of anticipation skill in tennis No transfer of calibration betw...

How does a performer become attuned to the perceptual information that is optimal for a task? Perceptual learning as a direct movement through information space guided by information for learning involving processes of education of intention, education of attention, and calibration.   Articles/links: Direct Learning http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/has-the-fly-ball-revolution-begun/ Learning to visu...

How does experience and practice change our ability to extract information from our environment and how can we best facilitate this process?  What changes in our brain during perceptual learning?   Articles/links: Perceptual learning and human expertise Expert baseball batters have greater sensitivity in making swing decisions .   More information: http://perceptionaction.com/ My Research Gate Pag...

Sports Science Shorts: will baseball's new proposed rule changes to speed the pace of play make the game more exciting and attract new fans?  What can we learn from similar attempts made in soccer? What determines a sport's fans level of excitement   Articles: How to Make Soccer More Attractive? Rewards for a Victory, the Teams' Offensiveness, and the Home Bias Does the Three-Point Rule Make Socce...

News: A look at a few recent articles in the area of motor learning and performance. Can the structure of motor variability predict the rate at which a performer learns a new skill?  Does using social media before a game increase anxiety in an athlete?  What differs between the way in which I child and adult learns a motor skill?   Articles: Can the Structure of Motor Variability Predict Learning...

A discussion with Danny Newcombe, Lecturer in Sports Coaching and PE, Oxford Brookes University. Topics discussed include: applying the constraints-led approach to practice design and physical education curriculum, research on the constraints-led approach --what does it tell us about its effectiveness and are we using the correct methods of evaluation?   More information about my guest: http://www...

A discussion with Diane Ste-Marie, Professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. Topics discussed include: why do athletes tend to perform better when they have control over the feedback they receive and when is self-controlled feedback ineffective? How do athletes use observation of themselves or others to acquire or improve sports skills and what factors should be taken...

A discussion with Dave Collins, Professor & Director of the Institute of Coaching & Performance, University of Central Lancashire. Topics discussed include: what it's like to be a sports psychologist, talent development, performance analytics, technique change, bridging the gap between research and practice, and the role of social media in research.   More information about my guest: http://www.uc...

Do athletes perform better when they talk to themselves? Should the talk be motivational or instructional? Positive or negative? Does it work for both novices and experts?   Articles/links: The influence of self-talk on the performance of skilled female tennis players Self-talk influences vertical jump performance and kinematics in male rugby union players Self-Talk of Marathon Runners Self-Talk a...

News: A look at a few recent journal articles. Do soccer players and referees sometimes see an event that never really happened? Can a basketball player detect where a dribbler is headed using sound alone? Is doing exercise in front of a mirror effective?   Articles: Seeing the unseen? Illusory causal filling in FIFA referees, players, and novices Expert Players Accurately Detect an Opponent's Mov...

Why does the presence of others change the performance of an individual athlete? Why is this social facilitation effect sometimes good and sometimes bad?  Does it matter whether the other people are observing, evaluating or performing the same action? Does being "observed" via activity monitoring technology facilitate performance?   Articles/links: The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competi...

Should the goal of practice be to reduce movement variability to as low a value as possible? Is high variability the signature of an unskilled performer or a necessity for effective learning?   Articles/links: A schema theory of discrete motor skill learning Feedback-Induced Variability and the Learning of Generalized Motor Programs Optimizing generalized motor program and parameter learning Varia...