The Perception & Action Podcast

Exploration of ways in which an athlete can develop and enhance their sports skills without actually performing them:  by using imagery and observational learning.  Does mentally rehearsing or imaging yourself performing an action really make you a better athlete? Can it sometimes be a bad thing to do? What is going on in our brain when we do it? How can we improve our imagery ability? Can watchin...

A little football science to get you ready for the big game on Sunday!  How does a QB lead a receiver, how does the receiver using visual information to run to the ball and how good are officials at judging pass interference calls?   Articles/links: BBSRC funded study on cricket catching To see or not to see: Effects of visual feedback on performance and intuitions of quarterbacks in American foot...

A discussion with Michael Grey, Reader in Motor Neuroscience and Director of the Neuroplasticity & Neurorehabilitation Lab at the University of Birmingham. We discuss topics including neuroplasticity, applying brain stimulation to sports, the similarities between neurorehabilitation and skill acquisition, and share our thoughts on the recent Will Smith movie Concussion.   More information abou...

News: Does using our dorsal visual stream during the control of action make us color blind?  When we improve after visual perception training is it really perception that is improved?   Articles: Color perception is impaired in baseball batters while performing an interceptive action Behavioral training to improve collision detection   More information: http://perceptionaction.com/ My Research Gat...

My review of the book “This is Your Brain on Sports: Beating Blocks, Slumps & Performance Anxiety”. How are past injuries and performance failures related to an athlete’s current struggles. Is Brain Spotting the key to preventing choking, the yips and freezing behavior in athletes?   Link: http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Sports-Performance/dp/1608448649   More information: http://percept...

A discussion with Jennifer Cumming, University of Birmingham. We discuss topics including imagery use and observational learning in athletes, mental skills training, tools for assessing the psychological abilities of athletes, and using sports psychology to help homeless kids.   More information about my guest: http://jennifercumming.com/ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer_Cumming http:...

What processes occur during the times when an athlete is not on the field or court, that is there off-time between practices and competitions.  How important are these rest periods for learning sports skills?  Does it matter what an athlete does during these periods?  Could doing something like playing video games possibly interfere with the gains made during practice?   Links to articles discusse...

Back in October of last year we lost one of the great thinkers and researchers in Motor Control and Motor Learning, UCLA Professor Richard Schmidt.  Richard’s Schema Theory of Motor Learning and Generalized Motor Program have been both highly influential and highly contentious. What will their legacy be for future research?   Articles: A schema theory of discrete motor skill learning. Motor Schema...

A discussion with Duarte Araujo, University of Lisbon. We discuss topics including an ecological approach to talent identification, affordances, non-linear pedagogy, developing sports analytics with a sound theoretical basis and Duarte’s upcoming book: Performance Analysis in Team Sports.   More information about my guest: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Duarte_Araujo http://spertlab.fmh.ulis...

News: Does going for a 30min run make it easier to learn a motor skill afterwards?  Is there an optimal balance between stability and flexibility in practice?   Articles: A Single Bout of Moderate Aerobic Exercise Improves Motor Skill Acquisition Transfer as a function of exploration and stabilization in original practice Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Sports Performance   More information: htt...

Articles: Together they stand: a life-threatening event reduces individual behavioral variability in groups of voles Definition of Choking in Sport: Re conceptualization and Debate Challenge and threat   More information: http://perceptionaction.com/ My Research Gate Page (pdfs of my articles) My ASU Web page Podcast Facebook page (videos, pics, etc)   Credits: The Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Ac...

A discussion with Mark Upton, Coaching Science Manger, English Institute of Sport. We discuss skill acquisition, coaching under pressure, being a sports parent and complexity in practice design.    More information about my guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markuptononline https://myfastestmile.com/ https://twitter.com/uppy01 https://youtu.be/-ALDmwayyKQ   More information: http://perceptionactio...

With the ever increasing availability of tracking and monitoring technology it is becoming easier and easier for an athlete to get feedback about their results and performance.  But is the too much of a good thing?  How does feedback influence the acquisition and performance of sports skills?  Which type of feedback should be used and how often? Is providing biofeedback (e.g., heart rate, brain ac...

News: My new year’s resolutions for 2016.  Is there any evidence of NBA players being clutch under pressure? Articles: Do clutch players win the game? Testing the validity of the clutch player's reputation in basketball   More information: http://www.perceptionactionpodcast.libsyn.com/ My Research Gate Page (pdfs of my articles) My ASU Web page Podcast Facebook page (videos, pics, etc)   robgray@a...

How much does an athlete need to practice to become truly elite? What should it involve?  Should it be fun?  Can everyone become a great athlete if they just practice enough?  In this episode, I focus on the most well- known theory in this area called Deliberate Practice, popularized as the 10,000 hour rule. Technically Challenged: Review of the Gazepoint GP3 Eye tracker and software  http://www.g...

A replay of our live discussion on the topic skill acquisition in which we covered topics including: Early specialization vs diversification? Deliberate play vs deliberate practice? Are athletes born or made? What fundamental movement skills should a young athlete acquire? What advice would we give ourselves as young athletes if we could go back in time?   Articles/Links: Late specialization: the...

How do people regulate and modify their emotions (e.g., when pretending to like a bad gift)? Is this what is involved in choking under pressure? Why do people slip on ice – is our visual system letting us down, literally? Why does everybody hate fruit cake – a lesson in multisensory perception?   Articles: Esteem threat, self-regulatory breakdown, and emotional distress as factors in self-defeatin...

How can we learn to shoot a basketball by thinking about a cookie jar and learn to putt a golf ball by thinking about toothpaste?!!  Can a novice athlete really become great without being given any verbal instructions about how to actually perform their skill? In the episode, I explore some approaches to learning and coaching sports skills that are radically different to the traditional methods mo...

My list of the top 5 stories in sports psychology/motor learning in 2015: 5.Skill acquisition is better when things look bigger 4.Is sports psychology research reliable 3.Neurodoping! Becoming a better athlete with brain stimulation 2.Yes, Virginia! There is a hot hand! 1.Perceptual-cognitive training in sports: science or snake oil?   Articles/links: Visual illusions can facilitate sport skill le...

A discussion with Josh Miller, Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences at Bocconni University, about his and Adam Sanjurjo’s recent work which has reversed the findings of 30 years of research on performance streaks in sports. Their work provides pretty convincing evidence that the hot hand is not a fallacy or illusion after all. I try (and fail) to explain the sampling bias they identified in my...

News: Do soccer goalkeepers suffer from the gambler’s fallacy in penalty shoot-outs? Are expert sailors better at judging the direction of wind from the feel on their skin?    Articles: The gambler's fallacy in penalty shootouts Expertise effects in cutaneous wind perception   More information: http://www.perceptionactionpodcast.libsyn.com/ My Research Gate Page (pdfs of my articles) My ASU Web pa...

How do fans perceive the action going on in sports?  Does your ability to watch a sport improve with hours of practice in front of your TV?  How does the perception of fans differ from the perception of the athletes themselves? Why was the Fox puck pure evil? Articles/links: Action anticipation and motor resonance in elite basketball players Foul or dive? Motor contributions to judging ambiguous f...

How do we use vision to control the placement of our feet on rough terrain, to avoid spraining that ankle?  How do anxiety, fear and fatigue change the way we perform these activities?  What differs between elite and novice climbers?  Did I survive a rim to rim hike in the Grand Canyon? Let’s hit the trail…. Articles: Visual control of foot placement when walking over complex terrain Anxiety–perfo...

Is Pearl Izumi right: “marathons have changed from a race to run to a box to be checked”? Is Associative or Dissociative Attention better for running and how does it depend on pace?   Articles/links: http://community.runnersworld.com/topic/pearl-izumi-ad-campaign?reply=54776376858447655 Attentional focus in endurance activity: new paradigms and future directions A social-cognitive perspective of p...

A discussion with Keith Davids, Professor of Motor Learning at Sheffield Hallam University and an innovator of the constraints lead approach to skill acquisition and coaching. We discuss using ecological dynamics to study sports performance, sport analytics, ecological psychology, team coordination and designing for exercise and health promotion.    More information about my guest: http://www.shu....