The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com What are the implications for skill acquisition and coaching if we accept that performers are complex adaptative systems? In a new opinion article posted on Sports Medicine, Pol and colleagues consider this interesting question. They emphasize that athletes and teams are co-adaptive and develop functional…

The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com -Can perceptual-motor training be used to reduce the chance at athlete will get a knee injury playing sports? In a paper from the recent International Society of Biomechanics in Sport conference, Tidman and colleagues compared two types of training to a control group using a…

The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com -An often overlooked aspect of skilled performance is the intersectionality between gender and motor learning. One way in which this manifests itself is stereotype threat which occurs when a common stereotype like “girls are bad at math” or “men don’t putt as well” impairs learning….

The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com -What happens when we use virtual reality to give you an abnormally large hand or foot? In a really interesting new chapter, Stefanucci and colleagues consider the topic of embodiment in virtual environments. Among the work they discuss, are studies that have given participants altered…

The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com -Can Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Improve Athletic Performance? Your heart rate variability is essentially a measure of the consistency of timing from beat to beat. I think most people are surprised to learn that a healthy heart doesn’t beat with perfect regularity like a metronome….

Can viewing images of cute baby animals help you learn? In a very uh, unique, new study published by Yoshikawa and colleagues in the Frontiers in Psychology, participants learned a task that required them to use tweezers to remove small pieces from a game board..so basically playing the game Operation. Prior to performing this task,…

The latest in skill acquisition and performance research from perceptonaction.com -How can we re-train a person to use a limb that has lost function due to a condition like Parkinson’s Disease? In a fascinating new paper published in the journal Disability and Rehabilitation, Ossmy and colleagues implement mirror therapy in virtual reality to address this…

-What should you think about the next time you are pumping iron at the gym? One of the most consistent findings in the motor learning literature is that, contrary what we are often told, you should not be thinking about your body (what is called an internal focus of attention) and instead think about something…

-Can you become a better golfer by using a metronome? In a study by Kim and colleagues recently published in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, a software program called Interactive Metronome was used to improve the timing and rhythm of golf stokes for professional women golfers. This essentially involves learning to synchronize…

-Do rugby players have better vision than normal people? In a recent study published in Sport Sciences for Health, Millard and colleagues tested 40 male premier league rugby players from and 40 non-athletes on battery of visual spatial skills tests. It was found that the rugby players had better accommodation to keep their eyes focused…