The Perception & Action Podcast

A discussion about practice warm-up sessions. What should their purpose really be? How can we innovate and re-design them to promote exploration and pave the way for motor learning? Links: https://emergentmvmt.com/reshaping-the-weight-room/ https://emergentmvmt.com/preparing-for-game-day-the-warm-up/   More information: http://perceptionaction.com/ My Research Gate Page (pdfs of my articles) My AS...

A discussion with Frans Bosch about his new book, Anatomy of Agility – Movement Analysis in Sport. Why is it critical to take into account the body's interests when coaching movement? Why is stability more important than perfecting a movement? How can a coach manipulate variability in practice to influence the development of attractors? What is the information for motor learning?   More info about...

A discussion with Sian Beilock from Barnard College. Why does pressure affect different performers in different ways? What should be in your toolbox when preparing for a high pressure situation or recovering from a situation where you didn't handle pressure as well as you would have liked? How can we best train to prevent choking? More info about my guest: https://sianbeilock.com/ https://www.amaz...

Revisiting the concept of "automaticity". Does it still have relevance to understanding skilled performance? Should the goal of training really be to get a performer to a stage where they are doing things automatically? Or, is it time to retire this idea to the legends section of the motor learning hall of fame? Articles: Movement Automaticity in Sport Beyond Automaticity: The Psychological Comple...

I am joined by Stu Armstrong and Kasey Crider to discuss Karl Newell's recent article "What are Fundamental Motor Skills and What is Fundamental About Them?" What exactly are they? Do we need to teach them to new learners before they can begin to explore and self-organize? What are the potential dangers of doing this? If we don't "teach the fundamentals" what can we do instead? Article: What are F...

An ecological approach to preventing and adapting to sports injury. To what extent can we predict injury from technique? How is injury risk related to movement variability and attentional focus? Can we reduce risk by increasing variability through training? Does injury induce functional neuroplastic changes in our brain?   Articles: Reviewing the Variability-Overuse Injury Hypothesis: Does Movemen...

Do learners choose movement solutions that are economical – that is those which not only achieve their performance goal but are also the most efficient and have low energy expenditure? What information is available to guide a performer to a more economical movement solution and how does it depend on attentional focus? How can this be conceptualized in a constraints-based framework?     Articles: M...

Can decision making in sports be improved by using above real time or "overspeed" video based training? Does it seem more "game-like" to athletes? Does it result in transfer of training to improved decisions on the field?     Articles: Sports training technologies: Achieving and assessing transfer The speed of perception: the effects of over‑speed video training on pitch recognition in collegiate...

A more detailed look at the manipulations used in Differential Learning. Are the movement variants representative? Will they induce an internal focus of attention? As a coach, how should you choose variants appropriate for the skill level and task being trained? And, a look at few recent studies in this area examining acute effects of training and changes in brain activity.   Articles: Short-Term...

How can a constraints led approach be used to develop tactical behavior in teams sports? Can a Step-Game Approach be combined with the CLA to improve tactical knowledge and team synergy? How does this all fit with Gibson's distinction between "knowledge of" and "knowledge about"?   Articles: The constraint-led approach to enhancing team synergies in sport - What do we currently know and how can we...

A look at how can we use instruction and feedback to guide self-organization in motor learning. Why, when and how should a coach use these types of informational constraints? Articles: When and how to provide feedback and instructions to athletes? – How sport psychology and pedagogy insights can improve coaching interventions to enhance self-regulation in training   More information: http://percep...

A look at a couple of my skill acquisition studies that have recently come out. How does variability in practice conditions influence the coordination of degrees of freedom?  And, a direct comparison between prescriptive instruction, differential learning and a constraints led approach.   Articles: Changes in movement coordination associated with skill acquisition in baseball batting: Freezing/fre...

A discussion with Kevin Becker from Texas Women's University. What factors moderate the classic "external focus is better than an internal focus" effect? What are athletes' self-reported focus strategies? How might we use multiple cues? What are holistic cues?   More info about my guest: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y2kl-b0AAAAJ&hl=en https://apps.twu.edu/my1cv/profile.aspx?type=twh&i...

A look at research examining how machine learning techniques can be used to further our understanding of motor learning, investigating questions related to talent development, the structure of practice, the level of tactical proficiency, and recovery from practice.   Articles: Complementing subjective with objective data in analysing expertise: A machine-learning approach applied to badminton The...

A discussion with Christian Vater from the University of Bern. What are the different ways athletes use peripheral vision in sports? Can you train an athlete to adopt a different gaze strategy? How can we use VR to better understand and train vision in sports.   More info about my guest: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=n0fsp3UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christi...

A look at recent studies investigating the use of situational probabilities by athletes? Does knowing your opponent's tendencies make you more susceptible to deception? Does it matter whether you are given probability info about your opponent or acquire it yourself? How can we account for the use of this type of information in an ecological approach to action?   Articles: Integrating situational p...

How do implicit and explicit learning interact with each other? If a coach gives an athlete an explicit strategy for correcting their technique is it going to hinder implicit learning? What does this say about whether it is a good idea for a coach to sample from different theoretical approaches and philosophies in practice design?   Articles: An implicit plan overrides an explicit strategy during...

A look at how modifying sports equipment (e.g., changing size, altering mass distribution or making more flexible) can enhance motor learning by adding variability and increasing movement execution redundancy.   Articles: Equipment modification can enhance skill learning in young field hockey players "Essential noise" - Enhancing variability of informational constraints benefits movement control:...

A look at individual differences in motor learning and coordination. What are intrinsic dynamics and how do they influence learning? How do patterns of coordination change with learning? Why do some athletes seem to be better able to self-organize than others?   Articles: Multi-stability and meta-stability: understanding dynamic coordination in the brain Beyond the blank slate: routes to learning...

A look at the concepts of multi and meta-stability in coordination. How can a performer have multiple movement solutions that are both stable and flexible at the same time? How might we develop this by training within meta-stable regions?   Articles: Multi-stability and meta-stability: understanding dynamic coordination in the brain How boxers decide to punch a target: emergent behaviour in nonlin...

I am joined by Damian Farrow, Alex Lascu, Derek Panchuk and Carl Woods to discuss the article: Sport Practitioners as Sport Ecology Designers: How Ecological Dynamics Has Progressively Changed Perceptions of Skill "Acquisition" in the Sporting Habitat. We discuss: the shift from coach as instructor to coach designer, the challenges of "hands-off" coaching, do coaches need to understanding skill ac...

A discussion with Paula Silva from the University of Cincinnati. How can stress help a performer adapt and grow? What is anti-fragility? How do we measure and it and train it? How can it be used to challenge an athlete at the right level? What is dynamic touch and how is it important for coordination and "feel"?   More info about my guest: https://researchdirectory.uc.edu/p/silvapa https://www.res...

How should biomechanics be applied in sport to improve performance and reduce injury? Should we be identifying ideal movement parameters from group based analyses or attempting to optimize for each individual athlete? How can we make biomechanics tools more accessible? Plus a discussion with Mike Sonne and Casey Mullholland about the development and use of a phone app for biomechanics analyses.  ...

A discussion with Matt Dicks from the University of Portsmouth. How does "anticipation" behavior change as we vary the degree of perception-action coupling? What is the role of perceived afffordances and action capabilities in the control of action? How do we explore our environment to learn (i.e. acting to perceive)? Should exploring be treated as something different than performing?   More info...

I am joined by Rajiv Ranganathan and Harjiv Singh to discuss the 1996 article "What are "normal movements" in atypical populations?" Are atypical movements in impaired populations actually functional adaptations to changes in constraints? Does a therapist "know better than our CNS" such that we should be trying to correct these adaptations and get the movement pattern back to normal? How do these...