The Perception & Action Podcast

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...

My list of the top 5 sports psychology stories from 2016: The death knell for brain games? Deliberate practice fights back! What to do about the relative age effect? Advances in Teamwork Research Somebody's watching (or monitoring) me   Articles/links: Do "Brain-Training" Programs Work? Peak: The New Science of Expertise Age-ordered shirt numbering reduces the selection bias associated with the re...

A look at visual channeling theory and its consequences for perception. Why are some people blind to approaching objects in certain areas of their visual field and what implications does it have for sport?   Articles/links: The Charles F. Prentice Award Lecture 1990: specific tests and specific blindnesses: keys, locks, and parallel processing Visual field defects for unidirectional and oscillator...

My report from the Sports Biometrics Conference held from Nov 13-15, 2016.  Issues discussed include validity of analytics data, whether athletes are going to agree to be continuously monitored and the frequent disconnect between science and practice.   Articles/links: http://sports-biometrics-conference.com/ http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2097866-the-sleeve-that-could-save-baseball-exclusive-...

News: A look at a few recent articles examining the effects of anxiety and pressure on performance and methods for counteracting these effects. Does pressure effect the planning or online control of movements? Could increasing anxiety in practice benefit motor learning?  What are holistic goals and how can they reduce pressure effects?   Articles: The interaction between practice and performance p...

Why do we have two eyes?  Is binocular vision necessary for successful performance of motor actions like those involved in sports and driving? Or is it just redundant information? What is it like to live with just one eye?   Articles/links: Binocular Vision and Stereopsis The visual and driving performance of monocular and binocular heavy-duty truck drivers Vision with one eye: a review of visual...

Which is better: specific or variable practice?  How does it depend on what you are trying to achieve in terms of retention and transfer of skill? The ultramarathon as a complex system and my report on surviving my first one!   Articles/links: A sensorimotor basis for motor learning: evidence indicating specificity of practice Specificity and variability of practice Specificity of Learning a Sport...

Is fear in a performer a debilitating problem that must be overcome? Or can freezing from fear actually improve our ability to perceive and act?   Articles: Ready and waiting: Freezing as active action preparation under threat Simulated self-motion alters perceived time to collision Freezing promotes perception of coarse visual features Seeing fearful body language rapidly freezes the observer's m...

A look at perceptual-motor development from the ecological perspective.  If it's not pre-programmed by our genetics, how does a child's pattern of movements emerge from the dynamical constraints of their environment? And how does movement shape perceptual discovery?   Articles/links: Motor Development: A New Synthesis Infant bouncing: The assembly and tuning of action systems Crawling versus walki...

A discussion Andrew Wilson from Leeds Beckett. We discuss ecological psychology ideas like motor abundance, functional equivalence and degeneracy, Andrew's recent study on task dynamics and information in throwing, his work on affordances and throwing prehistoric stones, and the current and future state of the ecological approach.   More information about my guest: http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/st...

A look at perceptual-motor development from an information processing, stage-based perspective.  What is the relative importance of genetics and early experience? Are their critical periods in which perceptual and motor skills must develop? What is an efference copy?   Articles/links: What Is Motor Development? The Lessons of History Infancy and Human Growth Effects of visual deprivation on morpho...

Thinking aloud about some sports science issues as I prepare for my first 50K ultra.  What is the optimal focus of attention for a runner and how does it change as you switch from road to trail?  How can one best acquire the skill of downhill running?  Does it depend on where you look?   Articles/links: My training log: https://www.strava.com/athletes/17201121 Race I am doing: http://www.aravaipar...

A discussion with Kylie Steel Senior Lecturer in the School of Science and Health at Western Sydney University in Australia. In the interview we discuss biological motion: what is it and how can we apply it to sport, how important is it to be able to quickly recognize a teammate on the field or court, do compression garments work and if so how, and how are skilled acquisition professionals viewed...