Movement Models from Sports Provide Representative Task Constraints for Studying Adaptive Behavior in Human Movement Systems

Abstract

Researchers studying adaptive behavior in human movement systems have traditionally employed simplified, laboratory-based movement models in an effort to conserve experimental rigor. Brunswikian psychology raises questions over the representativeness of many of these popular experimental models for studying how movements are coordinated with events, objects, and surfaces of dynamic environments. In this article we argue that sports provide rich ecological constraints for representative task design in modeling the complex interactions of human performers with their environments. Adopting a functionalist perspective enriched by ideas from ecological psychology and nonlinear dynamics, we consider data from exemplar movement models in basketball and boxing to support this contention. We show that this preference for movement models from sports, although not completely novel, has accelerated over recent years, mainly due to the theoretical re-emphasis on studying the interaction of individual and task constraints. The implications of using such applied models of movement behavior in studying the design of natural and artificial systems are also discussed. Keywords movement coordination and control • constraints • representative design • perception and action • degrees of freedom

Examination of gaze behaviors under in situ and video simulation task constraints reveals differences in information pickup for perception and action

“…Such observations highlight the need to adequately sample environmental constraints in experimental designs to understand functional human behavior. This view has been expressed in a broad spectrum of research contexts, including motor coordination (Davids, Button, Araújo, Renshaw, & Hristovski, 2006), judicial contexts (Bradford & Goodman-Delahunty, 2008), marketing (Fasolo, Hertwig, Huber, & Ludwig, 2009), and medical education (Wigton, 2008).…”

Naturalizing Peirce’s Semiotics: Ecological Psychology’s Solution to the Problem of Creative Abduction

“…Today, they are not, and the empirical research reviewed here indicates a convergence to a quite elegant, Darwinian solution able to accommodate aspects of both Gibson's [34,35] theory of direct perception and Brunswik's [9,11] theory of probabilistic functionalism. For empirical research demonstrating the utility of drawing simultaneously on both Brunswikian and Gibsonian theory see Kirlik [55,53,54,56] and Davids, Button, Araujo, Renshaw & Hristovski [17]. Recent Brunswikian research (e.g., Gigerenzer & Engel [36]; Gigerenzer & Goldstein [37]; Gigerenzer & Selten [40]; Gigerenzer et al [41]) is extending this approach in creative directions.…”

Territorial gain dynamics regulates success in attacking sub-phases of team sports

“…Other studies have also shown that the analysis of the dynamics of a single variable could reflect the global dynamics of an entire neurobiological system (e.g., Vereijken et al, 1997) and of the dyadic interactions between team games players (e.g., Passos et al, 2008). Previous studies on the dynamics of decision making behaviours in sport have been mainly focused on team sports, typically in 1vs1 interactions (e.g., Araújo, Davids, Bennett, Button, & Chapman, 2004;Davids et al, 2006), or in dyadic sports (e.g., squash by McGarry et al, 2002). This study advanced understanding by investigating interactions of multi-player sub-phases in field invasion team games.…”

“…Team sports can be regarded as social neurobiological systems in a complementary perspective that integrates each performer's central nervous system, bodyeenvironment interactions (biological e or interactions of a biological movement system and its environment) in an interpersonal social system (Davids, Araújo, Shuttleworth, & Button, 2003;Keil, Holmes, Bennett, Davids, & Smith, 2000;Kelso, 2009;Neisser, 1994;Newell, 1986;Van Gelder & Port, 1995). Social neurobiological systems are important to study because movement behaviour of each individual performer may be considered an emergent property of the continuous interactions of biological animated systems and the environment in goal-directed behaviours (Davids, Araújo, Shuttleworth, & Button, 2003;Davids, Button, Araújo, Renshaw, & Hristovski, 2006;Kelso, 2009;Newell, 1986). In social neurobiological systems, a relevant concept to understand is self-organization (Kelso, 1995(Kelso, , 2009).…”