129 The second episode in a series looking at the contributions of Paul Fitts to our understanding of motor control and motor learning. A look at Fitts’ highly influential 3 phase model of skill acquisition involving cognitive, fixation and autonomous phases. Is this model really at complete odds with more recent ecological approaches? Download link…

128 Does our perception of affordances in our environment depend on psychological momentum, changing as we move towards or away from achieving our goal? What is the value of informal, unstructured practice? How does it conform to the principles of ecological dynamics? Download link Articles: Perceiving affordances in sports through a momentum lens The Role…

127 The first episode in a series looking at the contributions of Paul Fitts to our understanding of motor control and motor learning. What is Fitts’ Law? How can it be used to understand and predict speed-accuracy tradeoffs (e.g. between throwing hard and throwing accurately) in sports? Download link Articles: The information capacity of the…

126 A look at David Lee’s Tau Coupling theory which seeks to explain how movements are controlled by using taus from our different senses and intrinsic tau guides. What is general tau theory and why does this variable apply to more than just approaching objects? Download link Articles: Guiding movement by coupling taus Guiding the…

125 The final episode in my series looking at the contributions of JJ Gibson to the study of perception and action. Where is the ecological approach to perception and action now? What evidence is there to support it? What are some of the challenges it still faces? Download link Articles: Perceiving action boundaries in the…

124 The second episode in a series looking at the incredible contributions of JJ Gibson to the study of perception and action. How do we go from information to goal-directed action? What are affordances and effectivities? How can they be used to guide our understanding of sports performance? Download link Articles: The Theory of Affordances…

123 The first episode in a series looking at the incredible contributions of JJ Gibson to the study of perception and action. What is direct perception? What are invariants? How do these ideas form the foundation for ideas like the constraints led approach and ecological dynamics? Download link Articles: The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception…

122 Some reflections on the excellent Skill Acquisition Summit I recently attended at the Florida Baseball Ranch. What are some of the best practices for using self-organization for developing sports skills? Download link Articles/Links: Florida Baseball Ranch Summit Comparing cueing and constraints interventions for increasing launch angle in baseball batting More information: Subscribe in iOS/Apple…

121 A look at a couple interesting recent articles on motor learning. How much variability should we add to practice and when? Are skills strengthened when they are reconsolidated when performing slight variations? Does sitting in chest deep water improve skill acquisition? Download link Articles: Motor Skills Are Strengthened through Reconsolidation Comparison of motor skill…

120 A look at the process of perceptual-motor calibration. How do we scale our perception of affordances in the environment to our action capabilities? What conditions are needed to allow for effective calibration and recalibration? Download link Articles: A systematic review on perceptual-motor calibration to changes in action capabilities Perceiving affordances: visual guidance of stair…