133A look at some recent research on representative design. How can we evaluate the representativeness of typical practice activities used in sport? What expertise differences emerge when we evaluate athletes in a more representative test environment?Download link Articles:Application of representative learning design for assessment of common practice tasks in tennisEmergence of Skilled Behaviors in Professional,…

132Do the principles derived from studying simple laboratory skills apply to the more complex skills involved in most sports? How does task complexity influence the way in which we manipulate load and challenge in practice? How should we schedule practice, give feedback and give physical assistance when training complex tasks?Download link Articles:Principles derived from the…

131 What is the optimal spacing of training sessions to promote acquisition of a new skill? How does it depend on task complexity and intensity? What underlying processes are involved? Download link Articles: Spacing Repetitions Over Long Timescales: A Review and a Reconsolidation Explanation Rate of learning in relation to spacing of practice periods in…

130 How do the emotions of an athlete constrain the movement solutions that emerge in practice? How can they be used an indicator of progress in learning? How might a coaches’ emotions influences skill acquisition and performance? Download link Articles: The dynamics of expertise acquisition in sport: The role of affective learning design Emotional games:…

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…