The Perception & Action Podcast

A look at the psychological side of penalty kicks to get you ready for Euro 2016. How does a penalty shootout compare to high pressure situations in other sports? What is the best strategy for taking a penalty? Is it important to have a pre-kick routine and celebrate if you win?   Articles/links: http://www.bases.org.uk/Psychological-Preparation-for-Football-Penalty-Shootouts http://www.dailymotio...

A discussion with Sam Miller, Editor in Chief at Baseball Prospectus and co-author of the new book: The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team.  We discuss the story of how Sam and his co-author Ben Lindbergh, two self-acclaimed stat head nerds, were put in charge of a baseball team – from recruiting to team strategy.  What can we learn about applying...

Why do teenage and elderly drivers have consistently higher accident rates? Are teenagers just being careless and risky? Does it matter who is in the car with them?  Do the declines perceptual and cognitive skills associated with age making driving unsafe for older drivers? -Guiding an athlete’s attention during training (Time 25:11).   Articles: Teenage drivers: patterns of risk The observed effe...

How well do performers recover from incidents of choking under pressure?  An examination of some baseball data to determine which factors influence whether or there is lingering performance effect after a choke. To See the Data, Figures & R Code from the Analysis Please Go To: http://perceptionaction.com/chokehangover   Articles/links: http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/ From attenti...

A discussion with Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology atFlorida State University and co-author of the new book: Peak: TheSecrets from the New Science of Expertise. We touch on topicsincluding purposeful vs deliberate practice, whether achievingautomaticity can hinder becoming an expert, whether skillacquisition is linear, being able to coach yourself, and adifferent role for genetics in skill...

News: What effect does mental fatigue have on sports performance?  Does fatigue change our ability to focus our attention, anticipate and make decisions on the field? Or does it just decrease or motivation to do all this?   Articles: Mental fatigue impairs soccer-specific decision-making skill Shifts in Attention During Mental Fatigue: Evidence From Subjective, Behavioral, Physiological, and Eye-T...

Is adding virtual objects (e.g., the offside line in soccer or the first down line in football) to augment sports broadcasts always a good way to enhance a fan’s experience or can it be taken too far?  My ESPN K Zone rant! Articles/links: http://www.sportvision.com/media/espn-k-zone Augmenting Live Broadcast Sports with 3D Tracking Information Design and Implementation for Interactive Augmented Br...

A discussion with Mark Anshell, Professor of Health & Human Performance at Middle Tennessee State University and author of the new book: “In Praise of Failure in Sport: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes to Achieve Optimal Performance Success”. We discuss why we need to change our conception of failure, the importance of failing for success in sports, fear of failure, using exercise as punishmen...

If your vehicle can detect you are about to collide with something how should it warn you? As it turns out, getting the human factors issues (e.g., timing, modality, level of information) correct is critical to getting a fast and appropriate response from the driver while at the same time keeping trust in the system high. Pressure-induced tunnel vision in sports (Time 22:55).   Articles: Collision...

The story of Coleman Griffith, the first psychologist to work with a professional sports team. Was he a hit with the Chicago Cubs in 1938? Or was it a big swing and a miss?   Articles/links: PSYCHOLOGY STRIKES OUT: Coleman R. Griffith and the Chicago Cubs   More information: http://perceptionaction.com/ My Research Gate Page (pdfs of my articles) My ASU Web page Podcast Facebook page (videos, pics...

A discussion with Peter Fadde from Southern Illinois University. We touch on several topics related to training including perception-action coupling, part vs whole training and sport specificity. We also do a deep dive into VR use in sports, attempting to tackle the question: how real does virtual reality need to be?     More information about my guest: http://peterfadde.com/ http://ehs.siu.edu/ci...

News: Can tests of general perceptual motor skills (e.g., agility, speed, eye-hand coordination) given to 7-11 year olds predict future participation and performance in sports?  Can neurofeedback training improve sports performance?   Articles: Sensorimotor Rhythm Neurofeedback Enhances Golf Putting Performance Can Perceptuo-Motor Skills Assessment Outcomes in Young Table Tennis Players (7–11 year...

Hurray for the 100th Episode of the Podcast! Can baseball pitchers overcome a lack of velocity by being less predictable?  How does entropy relate to success in sports? To See the Data, Figures & R Code from the Analysis Please Go To: http://perceptionaction.com/pitchentropy   Articles/links: The Relationship Between Visual Anticipation and Baseball Batting Game Statistics http://www.brooksbas...

A discussion with Denise Hill, Lecturer in Sport & Exercise Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. We discuss the experience of choking from the athlete’s point of view, whether we have been using the wrong definition of choking, how the effects of pressure are different for individual and team sports, and the importance of pre and post shot routines. More information about my guest: http...

What new technologies are being developed to make driving safer?  Will they remedy all the problems of driver distraction?  Are we ready for an automated car to do the driving for us?  5 evidence-based tips for designing effective sports training (Time 18:24). Articles: Evaluation of Six Night Vision Enhancement Systems: Qualitative and Quantitative Support for Intelligent Image Processing Allocat...

What is the relationship between the hand you throw with and how you hold a bat? How do players choose which side to bat from? Is it better to have your dominant hand higher or lower? My analysis of Major League Baseball data trying to answer these questions. To See the Data, Figures & R Code from the Analysis Please Go To: http://perceptionaction.com/battinghand   Articles/links: Manual Later...

A discussion with Jordan Muraskin, post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University and co-inventor of deCervo. We discuss topics including his research on the brain activity that underlies fast decision making in sport, combining EEG and fmri to understand where and when neural activity differs as function of expertise, action inhibition, and using brain recording as a tool for scouting and training i...

News: How do soccer goalkeepers move in response to shots coming from different directions and with curved trajectories? How can fractions be used to explain this behavior? Which factors influence the way in which coaches give error feedback to gymnasts?  How important are things like motor experience and biomechanical knowledge?   Articles: Fractional-Order Information in the Visual Control of La...

How can we be so good at hitting and catching accelerating objects when we can’t really judge acceleration? Do we use anticipation or just correct errors based on feedback? Articles: How Can People Be so Good at Intercepting Accelerating Objects if They Are so Poor at Visually Judging Acceleration? Visual timing in hitting an accelerating ball . Identifying the acceleration of visual targets . Vis...

A discussion with Sam Sommers, Associate Professor of Psychology from Tufts University and co-author of the recently released book, This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn from the T-Shirt Cannon. We discuss topics including why great athletes don’t always make for great coaches, whether all kids should be getting trophies, and how sports...

How much does talking or texting on a smart phone impair driving performance?  How can we get drivers’ attention back on the road?  How can we effectively bring the sports field into the lab by creating representative task designs? Are coaches impairing skill acquisition by oversimplifying sports skills? (Time 20:47) Links to articles discussed: http://about.att.com/story/smartphone_use_while_driv...

How important is nonverbal communication (e.g., hand gestures, high fives, using gaze) in sports? Why is a lot of the communication that occurs between athletes ineffective?   Articles/links: Intrateam communication and performance in doubles tennis Real-time communication during play: Analysis of team-mates’ talk and interaction Tactile Communication, Cooperation, and Performance: An Ethological...

A discussion with Dan McGehee, Director of the Transportation and Vehicle Safety Research Program in the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa. We discuss how driver behavior in a simulator compares to a real car, using black box recordings to understand how drivers react just before they crash, using instrumented vehicles to help reduce accidents by teen drivers, the transition to automa...

News: How has research on the quiet eye manipulated the performer, environment and task constraints? What questions are still unanswered?  Does training a novice to have eye movements like an expert improve decision making?   Articles: The ‘Quiet Eye’ and Motor Performance: A Systematic Review Based on Newell’s Constraints-Led Model Perceptual Training in Beach Volleyball Defence: Different Effect...

Why do even the most elite athletes sometimes get completely fooled by a killer step-over move in soccer, head fake in football, or cross-over dribble in basketball? Where should an athlete look on their opponent’s body to avoid being deceived?  What brain areas are involved in the perception of deceptive actions?   Articles/links: Detecting Deception in Movement: The Case of the Side-Step in Rugb...