Welcome back to Finding the Edge Podcast.
I'm Garrett Boyam joined with Robert Fry and AJ Ferrara and
today we have on Ben Franks. I met Ben back when I was with
Emergence and became familiar with his work there.
I got super excited because you were doing gays behavior when I
first got to know about you. And I was super excited because
with baseball gays behavior stuff with hitting was was kind
of in vogue you can say at that at that point in time.
And it was really awesome to hear your talk at the Sport
Movement skill Conference. And then you spoke again this
year and I got even more excited because you were talking about
cricket and that was even closer to the sport that we're all very
much interested in, which is baseball.
So I wanted to have you on to kind of dive more into your
presentation and kind of there was one specific question to
that Sean actually asked you. That also got me very intrigued
because we want to, I'm very much trying to figure out OK,
how do these ideas practically work with with like in their
practical application. And so, you know, there's a lot
of controversy about, you know, information profit processing
versus like an ecological approach and the different ways
that we do practice design and all that sort of stuff.
And so now that hearing a little bit about, you know, how you've
kind of gone more from a researcher to being a little bit
more closely on the field, I kind of want to hear a little
bit more about your story. So to start off then, you kind
of want to give us a little introduction of like, who you
are, because I bet a lot of people in the baseball world are
not super familiar with who is Ben Franks.
Yeah, I'm terrible at these. So I guess my my job now is a
senior lecturer in Applied Coaching Sciences at Oxford
Brookshire University. It's a bit of a made-up job
title I I teach some skill acquisition stuff and some
coaching stuff and some performance analysis bits.
And then as part of that kind of my, my role as a researcher
within this kind of broader ecological space.
My PhD specifically is looking at skilled intentionality within
cricket, as you said which is just a much longer slightly more
tedious version of of of baseball.
But you get like lots of like lunch and teas over a period of
five days which is quite nice. But yeah, and then I've always
tried to kind of remain quite close to the field and quite
close to coaching. And now it's always been quite a
big part of the work I try to do and and it was within my
research, is to make it as real and as close to the context as
possible and that's kind of kind of generated my my interest in
kind of gaze behaviour research. Particularly with with the.
Quiet eye initially, and now more.
Broadly in visual search behaviours, it's just because.
It's such a nice way to look at kind of real natural behaviours
in the in environments that as closely replicate what people do
in the performance context as much as possible.
And it all kind of stemmed from from my masters, in which I was
what I first presented on it. The at the the Emergency
conference a while back. The SMC conference which looked
at goalkeepers use of visual search behaviours again in
various different kind of conditions and environments
which were like increasingly representative to the
performance environment. And yeah, just like the real
kind of messy reality of that what I found really interesting
and the challenges along the way of trying to do real world
research. And yeah, just find some really
cool stuff. And kind of off the back of that
publishing that a couple of years ago now kind of linked to
that broader ecological, ecological sense around like the
fact that there is some variability that there is some
kind of unique signatures as such in how people engage with
like the visual information out there in the world and how that
then impacts. Movement.
Patterns and all that kind of broader stuff.
So, so yeah, I'm actually not coaching anymore.
Up until December, I was very much somebody tried to be
practical, but I've stepped back from kind of practical coaching
stuff to become a proper researcher for a little bit to
see if I can actually do some research and finish my PhD and
actually get some projects off the ground rather than trying to
do 1000 different things. I guess for me, I think a good,
maybe a good place to start is 1.
And I'm going to put two questions together.
One, the the question that Sean asked you and then I think it
ties well with. And so the question was was how
has your views of ecological dynamics changed over time?
How has it been honed or I think honed is the right word?
And then how did you like what? What is ecological dynamics to
you? Like I I think you know, how did
you get into it? I think it was the is really the
question that I want to ask. There's how did you get into
ecological dynamics? And then how has that changed
over time, now that you've done a Master's and now you're
teaching and going for your PhD? Yeah, so I come across it during
my undergraduate I was. I was quite fortunate to have
Will Roberts and Danny Newcomb as my 2 lecturers, who obviously
wrote the the latest edition of the Constrained Approach Book
with Ian Renshaw and Keith David.
So I was really fortunate in that sense to work really
closely with them for the three years of my undergraduate.
And then will. Robert supervised my masters,
then Danny employed me at the university initially.
So yeah, I I was really fortunate to work really closely
with those guys and they signposted me towards that stuff
and I probably then like they're super applied in Will and Danny.
Like their ability to apply this stuff is is phenomenal.
And I probably took a more truer sense to the theory side of
things rather than always like being super, super practical.
I was I was way more interested in like the mechanics that
underpin direct perception and stuff like that.
So I kind of ran that way a little bit more and and then
that's kind of shaped my views to I'd I'd try to locate myself
more in ecological psychology rather than ecological dynamics.
Just because of I guess the obviously the massive huge
debates that go along all over Twitter and around the
ecological approaches and more traditional approaches or kind
of meshed approaches or 40 whatever it is and that that
kind of space and it there are some fair challenges of
ecological dynamics. So obviously my PhD supervisor
currently kind of pushed me more towards the traditional
ecological psychology sort of things and like dealing with
like real life information kind of stuff and the perception of
proper information. So I probably drifted more
towards ecological psychology over the last few years away
from ecological dynamics, but that was more just the progress
of my PhD which led me down that path.
And I think ecological dynamics is still is still really useful
theoretical framework for coaches.
But there is some, there is some messiness and there's some bits
that have been cherry picked at times.
And it doesn't always. There's there's some
contemporary issues which is being solved gradually just
because it's a very new theory, which isn't to discredit the
theory. I think that's really
beneficial, but it's gone through that evolution over the
last couple of years, but. It's.
Probably why I've drifted more towards kind of eco cycle.
Also where I'm a perception researcher, it just it fits
better for my for a lack of me a little bit.
I'd worry less about the movement patterns underpin it,
which obviously what ecological dynamics has its strengths in
from a dynamic systems perspective.
And Ben, you you talk a little bit about it, you know the
different some of the differences between ecological
psychology and ecological dynamics.
In your experience these past few years, what are some things
within ecological psychology that you've kind of uncovered or
thought about in a different way than, say, you know, when you
were on the side of ecological dynamics?
I think that the key one is the treatment of that, the treatment
of information that we perceive. I think in ecological psychology
obviously still has it's more traditional roots within the
mathematics of it all, which isn't massively my strength,
but. I feel like from AS.
From a research perspective, I do do think it's much more much
more powerful in that sense. And truly understanding what
information is, is specifying and which information is lawful
to behaviour. Whereas ecological dynamics is
kind of at times just lumped information together as
specifying and non specifying and doesn't treat always treat
the underlying bits of it, but more just because it rests on
the assumptions of ecological psychology.
It's not necessarily, but it doesn't care about it.
It's more just resting on those traditional assumptions.
Can can you on that point go into a little bit more depth on
the specifying versus non specifying That was something
that you had talked about at SMSC that personally I saw had a
lot of carry over to the hitting side of baseball.
So would love for to hear a general overview of how you
bucket those things, what goes into it for the audience.
So then if I if I use my PhD. As the example.
The specifying information will be things like the bull flight,
things that are lawfully like bound to action.
So if you think about some of the more traditional work like
Dave Lee's work in kind of steering when driving and
looking at things that time to contact and the variable of Tao
Tao describes that time to contact and it's an information.
Variable, which is kind of lawful in the sense that it
specifies A relation between the observer and the environment, so
we can perceive the rate of expansion of an object on the
retina. Which is like a lawful way of of
treating that information because it leads to specific
behaviour. So in cricket.
The the the flight of the ball towards the batter is very much
a specifying source of information because it is kind
of it is leading to an action. Whereas a non specifying
information source might be something like the broader like
contextual environment around it.
It might be the line of the run up of the bowler.
It might be. The slight variations in their
action within their hands. So in cricket, different kind of
and similar. To baseball, right with
different. Hand positions, finger positions
can impart different trajectories in the ball.
Different race of spin, different speed, it can make it
swing. All of those are more.
Non specifying sources of information because they're not
going to tell us directly. How to act?
It's not going to necessarily allow me to intercept the ball
in its path, but it's going to get me in a state of kind of
action readiness. So the way that we're treating
that in my PhD is that the use of non specifying information
allows the individual to to keep open as many possible
affordances as possible. It's like puts us into this like
state of action readiness. So it for for.
For cricket batters, it brings them into the line of the ball,
or it might inform. The of the.
Variation of the ball which can be bowled.
So cricket ball normally has a shinier side and a rougher side,
just where the bowlers will try to protect one side of the ball
so that it can be much smoother. And that's then going to.
Create a bit of lateral. Movement in the swing of the
ball and then slight variations in how that's how the seam that
runs through the middle. Of the ball.
Variations in how that seam is positioned.
Within the within the grip of the bowler.
Can then kind of. Cause the hit to hit.
The seam to hit the ground at slight different angles and it
might start to like to to nip up towards them or be.
A little bit flatter in the carry through or swing, more
like. They're all like non specifying
bits of information, those kind of grips on the ball.
It's just informing the batter of a of a state of.
Action that might. Occur in the future.
So it just brings them closer into line with potentially not
another word expected, but like potentially expected outcomes.
So as a bat, as a batter. I mean, I'm a terrible batter.
I've done dreadful. This is why I do research in it
rather than doing it. I know that if I'm if I'm facing
a bowler at my local Cricket Club where the the wickets are
normally quite they're not the best in the world.
They're normally quite soft. There's a bit of a hill so I
know if I'm facing a bowler who's coming down the hill it's
always cloudy where I am so it can be quite overcast.
So I know that the likelihood is is that ball is going to swing
away from me a little bit and I'll try and pick it in the
bowlers hand and I'll try and. Pick for that their variations
in in finger positions in the same position.
I'm pretty poor at it, but I should.
Be able to. I'm going to start to think that
this is probably going to swing away from me and swing away from
the stumps. So chances are I'm going to be,
I'm going to be playing lots of shots into the kind of into the
offside, trying to pick those ones out over there.
So I might bring myself kind of from.
I might shuffle my feet a little bit more.
I might move towards the line of the ball that I think it's going
to be on, but it's not going to specifically 'cause me to do the
action of intercepting the ball. That comes much later on in that
kind of the in the event when specifying information becomes
available through the trajectory of the ball and like more lawful
variables like time to contact come into play.
So when you say something is non specifying it can still be
relevant, but how do you also deal with like information that
is not relevant? Because even to me, so when you
describe Tau, Tau seems to me to be like a higher order variable,
right? Would that be a fair?
OK. And so if that's if that's the
case, that it's a a higher order variable, can there be other
specifying information that's not that's like a lower order,
you know? So for example, being able to
pick up the hand position or the release point to me that is
specifying but it's not. It's not like you're saying like
it doesn't have a lawful thing but if I can't pick up that
point I won't be able to follow or I'll have to pick up the the
trajectory of the ball further down its its flight path and
that's if it if I am able to to to figure that out.
And so to me there's there's something about you also need to
be attuned and sensitive enough to be able to pick up where the
release point is so that you can actually follow the the the the
ball flight. And so I guess that's where I'm
kind of interested to know like how do these other variables
that are, how do you delineate variables, variables that are
like not even relevant at all. You could say crowd noise like
that doesn't have that. If you're tuning to that or
you're letting that affect you, that's that's completely non
specifying. Whereas something like the the
the bowlers run up that has that has information that's useful
but it's not. It doesn't have that lawfulness
necessarily. But even still like I think it,
it tells you when you going back to what you're talking about
before action readiness, right, you have to start, it gives you
information of when to start moving to put yourself in a
position to to be able to actually respond to that later
information. So I guess is is that what
you're meaning by action readiness is that you are acting
in such a way to prepare yourself for the subsequent
event or things that are about to unfold.
Yeah, like non specifying doesn't necessarily mean like
not informative, it's just not lawful.
So I think that's where ecological psychology I think
treats information more clearly in the sense that like
ecological psychology is is the study of ecological like
relations and the study of information within that
environment. So the the job of ecological
psychology is to find the the lawful information variables
which which are specifying of action and like we can perceive
directly so we. Perceive things like Tau
directly. It's like a.
It's just an. It's a lawful information
variable. The the Point around crowd.
Noise is an interesting one because like.
We don't know that it's not informative, so most teams have
a better home record and they do have an away record.
And that's probably something to do with things like the crowd we
saw in the UK, especially my main.
Sport is football. As much as my research is in
cricket, like my interest has always been football, soccer in
in this context. But during COVID when there was
no crowds like the home and away kind of records kind of levelled
out a little bit more. So the crowd I think might
actually be part of skilled behaviour, the fact that we're
able to deal with a crowd, whatever.
So my PhD is is essentially around that point is how we
couple the use of like specifying and non specifying
information because there's so much of it and almost like the
treatment of something like cricket.
Rather than it being like a series of discreet events, like
all one ball 2, ball 3, it's just one continuous temporal
event. Every ball corresponds to the
the ball before it and the ball that comes after, because those
events are so nested in our relations with the environment.
So how I'm batting, how I'm perceiving, how I've attuned to
the environment at the start of my innings might look very
different to the middle and to the end.
And compared to when it's 10 in the morning to two in the
afternoon to 4:30 in the late afternoon.
Compared to if we've got, you know, runs on the board or we've
lost loads of wickets or the weather's changing a little bit
or like all those different information sources can start.
They're non specified, but they can still be informative.
They are still like shaping our relations with the environment
and that essentially that state of action readiness.
Is it be used or more more skilled individuals will use
that non specifying information IE like pre ball release
kinematics might use it more successfully and it might do a
better job of bringing them in line with the ball like the ball
moves way too fast for us to rely solely on.
That trajectory information alone.
So we have to do something which brings us in line or closer in
line to to in in that batting performance.
So as you'll see most like individuals will start
triggering that movement, particularly goalkeepers.
In my Masters work the goalkeepers are often moving
before the ball has been struck, so obviously that kind of non
specifying information is causing some behaviours to
change. It's maybe not the most informed
decision because it's not relying necessarily on like ball
trajectory information, but it's but it's still something which
is allowing us to anticipate the future state of that event.
So with batting in particular like that, anticipation come
from things like the run up information we know about the
bowler, we might know that the bowler likes to bowl certain
variations at certain times in the innings and that kind of
stuff. And it's just brings me into
this state of action readiness, which is where I'm just trying
to keep the landscape of performances as open as possible
or as kind of solicited as possible towards the kind of
expected outcome of those events.
Just helping the batter keep in line with future events and that
almost that kind of like allowing them to access more
specifying information sources through the use of non
specifying information obviously by bringing them into that state
of action readiness so they're more able to then make use of
the affordances further down the line of that event.
Are there many other specifying sources of information other
than you could say like towel? Yeah there's there's matter into
them all over the shop there is. I'm going to get the names from
of these as well. There's there's a lot done in
flyable catching. Particularly by Claire Michaels
in like the 80s, I think around like perceiving like vertical
optical acceleration or something like that.
That's not exact, that's not the exact term.
I'm sure there there are other variables, but I guess the the
difficulty in these variables is in accessing them as well as
like the maths behind them is is crazy half the time.
There was some. Some work a while, not too, but
ten years ago I think around affordance based control and how
we make use of affordances in line with kind of knowledge of
our own action capabilities and our own effectivities and how
kind of lawful information can be used in respect to those
effectivities. And so there's bits and pieces
out there, but that I guess that's more specifically the
role of ecological psychology is around understanding those
information variables compared to ecological dynamics, which I
guess is more geared towards certainly more towards sport
based contexts in particular. And it's probably more an
applied theoretical framework to understand those interactions in
the sporting context, so probably less less worried.
About the different information variables used and more worried
about. Kind of the the broader context
around affordance use in sport. And you talked a little bit
about you know the non specificity of crowd control and
whatnot. So I want to go to a football
example and talk about how for Liverpool's home games they the
crowd does you'll never walk alone to sing.
And so and I know in in other sports like in baseball in the
States, the common thing that coaches will tell minor leaguers
is never looked up because the crowd size is never above, you
know two decks high at most and then when you look up you know
the the bright light. So in terms of, you know,
ecological psychology, how can that something like that where
maybe there is a notorious home field advantage or there's a
notorious place you're going to that's well known?
How does that affect? You know someone's, you know,
performance in terms of ecological psychology.
Yeah, I'm not sure it's necessarily even an ecological
psychology perspective on it. It's just kind of the the more
traditional stuff on arousal and kind of state anxiety and stuff
and the biological effects that that can be had on the performer
as well. And the kind of increase in
heart rate and like that stuff is affecting that broader
complex system that humans are and kind of that's going to
change the relations we have with the environment and it I
don't ultimately I don't know the exact relations that crowd's
going to change on how we perceive stuff.
There's there's likely I think a broad and neurobiological
response we have to to stresses and that's going to affect how
we then pick up information. I think as a fair hypothesis we
can lean on, which I think underpins kind of ecological
psychology and particularly the biological relations that that
inform our interactions and kind of a a broader complex system
that we are and are linked. To as well.
I wanted to loop back just a little bit.
Can you kind of explain what is direct perception you know
because you you brought up you know that we can't necessarily
maybe track the ball the whole way if it's going super fast
because it's moving faster than our eyes can can, can follow and
then you know how does direct perception differ or maybe how
does it does it can it be coincided with this you know
information processing. You know how long it takes, you
know the information to go travel from the eye to the brain
and then from the brain to the spinal cord.
Like how how do you view this stuff?
And then also like how is how does direct perception play into
all this. So direct perceptions like I'd
probably say is like the strict starting point of any kind of
ecological approach to perception and that kind of
stems from Gibson's really early work and direct perception is is
literally the how we perceive the environment directly.
There's no need for any kind of mediating or kind of broader
mental gymnastics or kind of inferential processes within the
brain to kind of process that sense that sensory data into
something more meaningful. Gibson's whole argument was that
the world out there is meaningful in itself.
Like the the the environment that we're surrounded by, like
has meaning within it. So like as we are walking in a
straight line down a path, information kind of like the
visual scene rushes past us. And that perception of optic
flow is what specifies motion and that is supposedly or is
argued is a direct information variable which we pick up on.
So we are surrounded by this optic array, just that light
reflecting off of all number of surfaces and that can specify
kind of depth and occluded surfaces.
So as I'm sat here now I've got a lamp on in the corner and like
that projects that light into the room and it creates a very
littered kind of optic array. And I've got like a chair there
and the end of the sofa there, the door there.
And I can now pick up all the different objects or bits of
furniture within the room. That's the optic array which I'm
trying to perceive. And as I move I kind of the
visual scene will will always change and it's the relation I
have for that environment which is important the direct
perception therefore there specifies that the information
out there which is causing me to act, we are kind of innately
sensitive to in the sense that it's it is lawfully specifying
of action. So my behaviour is controlled by
the perception of kind of very real material information
sources which I attune to or calibrate to which informs our
perception. So there was there was loads of
work done on looming objects in babies, and how babies can
respond to how objects loom towards them.
There's some wicked work for him.
I think it's like 1981 from I. Think.
It was Bootsma and Savilsberg and someone else.
I can't remember their life for me, but they they literally
examined kind of whether we are sensitive to objects kind of
looming towards us, kind of growing and like the rate of
expansion. And they got like a mechanical
arm and a lot of balls which flew towards the face of the the
perceiver and they had to kind of kind of grabbed the ball as
it came towards them on this mechanical arm.
And they kind of measured like the grip aperture, so like the
held of the aperture in the hand and they sent one ball down
which was like a large size ball and it stayed large the whole
time. They did one with a smaller ball
which stayed small the whole time and they did one with with
a ball that deflated as it went down to see whether we are
actually sensitive to the rate of change in an object relative
to kind of as it's moving towards us.
So we can actually perceive rate of expansion and it kind of was
evidence that like the aperture, the aperture in the hand changed
relative to the deflating ball as it came towards them.
So they argue that we are sensitive to that kind of that
information source. It's a lawful lawfully
specifying source of information which is a has a consequence of
of action. Whereas more traditional
theories in psychology lean really heavily on
representation, so like more forms of indirect perception.
The world is just like a collection of lights which kind
of comes into the retina and it's just meaningless sense data
which we need to make sense of. And there has to be some process
in the brain which knits and stitches that picture together
to make it therefore meaningful for the person perceiving it.
And I think a lot of it stems from like the fact that the the,
the reflection within the eye of light comes backwards and
therefore like the brain has to do something to like flip the
image as well and the brain has to do something to stop it being
a collection of still images like a like an old school like
movie tape. So there has to be a process in
the brain which is doing that stuff.
And that's where information processing kind of and that
stemmed from. And now more towards like active
inference and more contemporary representational theories have
come from in the sense that I think most people have like
disregarded information processing.
Now I think even kind of most hardline cognitivists are now
pre accepting that that's that's not really a thing and it's
we're more towards kind of active inference and predictive
processing and mesh control or kind of the frisht and brigade
about the four E kind of stuff. But the difference is still
based around the use of representations within
cognition, perception and action.
And ecological psychology is still really hard line with the
fact that no representation is needed because we are directly
sensitive to information out there.
Whereas there is still that kind of band of cognitivists who are
still committed to the fact that perception can't be direct,
there has to be a mediating factor within the brain
somewhere. So I think this area types
nicely that I forgot Part 2 of the question.
It's all right. I mean, it happens.
It's also late in my my brain works like that as well.
I I think because part of part of why I want to get on this
direct perception element and trying to understand the
mechanics a little bit because I think that's where a lot of
people struggle is like, OK, you say this word, but how does it
actually work? How does it guide action?
Because I'm going to slightly veer off here.
So somebody had tweeted this out and I'm kind of, I kind of want
to get your thoughts on it and how it relates to either cricket
or baseball because they're talking about this for for
baseball. They quoted somebody perception
is biased by things you have seen before.
Richard Mass Massland. To me that makes sense.
But how this person interpreted it, they they followed up with
saying calibrate internal pitch models of your hitters.
And so I think ecologically if we go we're not, we're not.
Yes our perception is biased by the things that we have seen
before. I think that that that I think I
can accept that, but I don't know it's about like calibrating
my internal pitch model. So I guess how how would you,
how would you, like understand that or what would you, how
would you respond to a coach who who wants to increase a who
thinks that perception is about updating internal models and
representations of the world. You know, because it it very
much feels like we're looking at the same data set, but we're
interpreting it in some ways, two different, slightly two
different ways, but like you know, you end up in very
divergent ways of what you end up doing in training, if that's
what you're trying to do. So I'm kind of curious your your
thoughts on how you, how you'd respond to that.
I mean the the, the new nihilist me, it'd be like, I just just
let him crack on thinking like that.
Because this stuff's like politics, right?
Some people you know, No one changes political party
particularly easily. Like.
And it's similar with this stuff.
It's so deeply rooted in kind of how we view the world and like
our internal epistemologies and ontologies that it feels like
there's there's like a an attraction to a particular way
of viewing the world and that aligns with ecological or or
cognitivist stuff. That's the.
But to give an actual answer, there's a little bit that's just
so rooted in language. So they're using the the, the
thought of a generative model of that pitch which we're trying to
build and therefore the athlete can the stronger that model is,
the better able that model is to be able to be adapted to
different circumstances within the pitch.
Like it, it makes like logically kind of it, it sounds good.
I guess the ecological version of that would be around
attunement to the information which is available.
So one of the issues we have issues that's pretty wrong word.
But in cricket in particular, there's a use of lots of bowling
machines. So kind of big mechanical
structures. You put the balls in the top,
set the set the speed and set the direction.
And I think some of them you can impart swing and spin on it as
well and you fire balls down to the batter and and there is some
like very tangible stuff there, right.
You're perceiving an object in flight like it's just pretty
similar to batting in a game. But this is where kind of that
broader use of I think and particularly in my PhD the the
marriage of sensory and non sensory information, the the the
marriage of kind of non specifying with specifying
information. I think that perception is
naturally using all of those forms of information every day.
Like we're walking around the the the general world and we're
always kind of using those bits of information.
It's always part of our kind of visual and cognitive processes.
So within cricket we use lots of bowling machines that have very
little additional information beyond the trajectory of the
ball. And and you you could argue the
trajectory of the ball isn't quite right as well because you
don't get that same kind of natural ball path that you get
from bowlers and that kind of stuff.
But, and the way that bowling machines are used is that you'll
give lots of consistent feeds at particular, you know, particular
length on a particular line and you'll just kind of groove the
technique of the batter and you'll help them get really
affected at making that shot, essentially to create a
generative model in the brain. Whereas the argument on the flip
side of that or an ecological approach would be you're you're
just exposing them to kind of increasing levels of sensitivity
to that information. And you're allowing them to
explore the affordance landscape if you want to use that term or
just explore the kind of the visual information that's
available to them and to be able to pick up what is specified to
inform their actions. So if we face the bowling
machine really often, we get quite good at facing the bowling
machine because we've learnt the dynamics of that task.
I we've learnt the information layout, the information
structure. We've kind of become very
sensitive to that particular optic array.
Like I'm quite good against the bowling machine, I'm I'm a
pretty good batter. If you set it up on a pretty
consistent length and line, I can get myself in a good bit of
flow, whereas an ecological version that would be you just
learn task dynamics. We get very good at tasks that
we learn, and transfer between tasks is actually quite
difficult because we we learn the information layout of
particular settings. So take away the bowling
machine. You've got Nat.
You're facing natural bowlers with all the other bits of
information around it, which is essentially one of the PhD
studies I'm doing, is facing bowlers just going through
random deliveries, just whatever, bowlers with a more
pattern sequence and bowlers with a set field, a context, a
score, a scenario, and like increasing the levels of other
information that might sit around that.
And that for me is what's what we should be.
How we should be supporting athletes is to make them as
effective as possible as picking out of what is useful or
selecting the information which is most soliciting and kind of
is going to allow them to exploit the affordances that are
available within the environment.
And I think that's what we've got to get athletes to, is that
they've got to make really complex decisions under a lot of
pressure with a load of different bits of information
all over the place. Like the actual event of the
delivery in baseball and cricket is such a minute amount of time.
There's got to be more to it around that which is supporting
action. Like how how much are we
exposing athletes to sequences in delivery?
How much are we exposing them to?
Like. So in in cricket, you receive an
over, so you receive 6 balls from the same bowler.
How often are we like actually exposing our batters to a bowler
bowling 6 deliveries? Are we allowing them to kind of
explore that, that bowler in a sequence and pick up on the bits
of information which might support their action or might
inform different parts? I've.
Veered off quite significantly I think, but I have to bring it
back around to kind of the building of generative models is
that so? So we teach a module, Oxford
bricks where I we used a coaching module around kind of
creating practice designs and we joint deliver it.
So every week there's a broad theme and I deliver it from like
an ecological angle and the other lecturer delivers it from
a more cognitive angle angle, particularly around predictive
predictive processing. So we have our different use of
terms things like he's saying our we're building generative
models here. I'm saying well actually just
we're supporting them and you know exploiting a landscape of
affordances and attuning to XY and Z and we explain all these
different things from our two different perspectives.
But reality of is it most of our coaching looks quite similar.
We both use, you know. Pretty similar looking
environments. We'd like to keep things to be
relatively representative of the performance environment.
We're not a big fan of blocked, repetitive, repetitive practice.
You know, we must think athletes making decisions is a pretty
good thing. Our coaching was really similar.
Our views of the world and our theoretical frameworks are very,
very different. But ultimately it's it gets us
to the the same kind of place on the pitch itself.
For. Different reasons, and they're
always going to be bits of Revere off away from each other
practically as well. But it's got me to this kind of
point, which is why I don't really do Twitter anymore of
like, do we need to worry that much about understanding the the
mechanics and the intricacies of different theoretical
perspectives as coaches and instead like just sharing some
of the good principles and good practices that are available to
us in Within Coaching? I don't know what the answer is
to that, but I think it's worth exploring because I have spent
the past ultimately 10 years studying this stuff in a fair
amount of depth and as part of my job.
And even I've like barely scratched the surface and I've
probably got a pretty good grasp on it.
But I don't know everything and I don't know all the different
bits. And you know, my mathematics
isn't that strong and my theory isn't the best in the world.
And like, so like I've spent all this time studying it and I
don't really know it. So is there any, like any coach,
kind of whose job is to be a coach, How much, how much of
this are they going to understand as well?
That's the kind of debate I've wrestled with lately.
So as long as we can share in the good parts of us put like
respective theories and like we're making informed decisions
because we've kind of got grasp with some stuff maybe that's
quite effective. I don't know I'm kind of
rambling a little bit but the thought got in my head.
No, I mean because the the longer that I've been in this I
guess you could say and then also practically trying to apply
it with other coaches that don't aren't familiar with these
concepts. The the the concept I play with
is this this idea of dexterity and adaptability.
So if I understand and too like mastery if you understand a
concept well enough you should be able to apply it across any
different context that you find yourself in.
And to me if I'm just going from an ecological dynamics
perspective, well you know if I understand constraints and the
constraint LED approach and I understand how to manipulate
constraints it doesn't matter the situation.
If I can understand the problem that we're trying to solve, then
I can apply an ecological approach.
Even if the other person is applying, you know, a blocked
cognitiveness approach, I can still help athletes regardless
or just figure out how to navigate.
And so to me, you know, to your point, you know, I'm, I'm
getting that way too of like, yeah, a lot of times the the
environments that we put are putting our athletes in are very
similar. But at times though, because I
think if we're all doing the same environments, what is
giving us an edge? Because I do think that's you
know trying to understand from an athletic performance
standpoint what is giving us an edge over our opponents or what
is going to help us better attuned to what our athletes
need. And I think that's where the
where this stuff like really matters of like why why should
you care is trying to figure out like how do we get more
performance out of our athletes and and so that's at least my
initial thought of of kind of what you're talking about is
like OK yes there's there is that whole element of people are
not going to understand it feels very religious.
But at the same point I do think if we wrestle with the questions
not necessarily trying to persuade the other person but be
able to answer it because a lot of times we we we just take it
for granted. You know like these ideas and
these concepts like of course it's direct perception but like
the the person who is resistant they help us understand our
position deeper to be able to articulate it better.
And so at least for me that's that's kind of I've approached
it because it similarly to you I've I've been thinking about
like you know interactions on on social media of well why am I
why am I posting this you know why am I specifically trying to
win an argument. But I also think there's
something to of like being able to articulate better your
position. So I, you know, without
necessarily crapping on everybody else, like I think
that's a an important thing because then that like it just
doesn't become super productive. But there is, there's another
thing that I wanted to kind of loop back into of you're talking
about pitching machines and that's that's ubiquitous in
baseball as well. One person that I've been
interacting with on social media who I appreciated has helped me
understand some things the way that he views it and he is.
He wrote an article on Tao and all this sort of stuff, but he
views it very much. In this I want to say more
mechanical sense of like it's all just about time.
Time to contact is the only thing that matters.
And I'm like, but it it doesn't like because for him he's like,
well, I just need to use a pitching machine because Tao is
the only thing that matters. So what's the difference?
It's it's all the same. And in my head I'm like, I don't
have a good response because even part of what you're just
saying, you know, like, well, if Tao is the specifying
information in the ball, is the specifying information in the
ball flight, why, why wouldn't I just use a pitching machine?
So I guess for what would you say to the person who sees it
that way, I to me it makes sense why you would see it that way.
All the things that we've been saying so far mostly sound like
it affirms that, but what is the nuance that we're missing here?
I think it's the assumption that the event starts when the ball
is released and almost the ignorance to the fact that there
is 20 seconds prior to ball release where loads of stuff is
happening, right even like down to the point of like my
knowledge of base was pretty limited, right?
But the fact of someone trying to steal a base and that
delaying the whole process of the the the pitch coming in like
that, that's all part of it. Like that's all part.
This is one of the things that really frustrated me within
skill acquisition. Research is the just the
treatment of all these different events as isolated things and
that are taken away. The fact that they're all so
connected to each other. It's a logical argument that you
know if all of it matters is Tau, then yes use pitching
machines. But then we're asking people to
perceive from complete static like nothingness to then all of
a sudden a ball flies us. So then you bring the fact that
well, reaction time isn't very much a thing because you know,
smooth pursue tracking doesn't happen as easily as that.
So the first little, the first few milliseconds are redundant
because we just don't see the ball fire out of the hole that
quickly. So we've now lost part of the
event to to to nothing and then with the individuals, the batter
is moving late. There was Ross Pinder's work in
2000 and nine 2010 that looks at kind of movement kinematics when
facing a bowler machine versus a live bowler.
And we did something similar with visual search research in a
project at Oxford Bricks. But essentially like the
movement kinematics occur much later the the bat lift is much
less when facing a bowler machine because you're the whole
response to the event itself comes much later.
If you're facing a bowler, you can pick the ball very early on
and you can kind of smooth pursuit that the smooth, smooth
pursuit track the ball for a much longer period of the event
because you know what, like you can see the ball, the ball's
within your visual field. The second use of bowling
machine, that ball is occluded and if you occlude the ball and
it's out of the visual field, then all of a sudden when it
suddenly appears, it doesn't appear where we need it to
appear because we'd like, because if you'd start to bring
in other aspects to it. So that's the bit that gets me,
is that batting isn't just relying on things like time to
contact because they like train the things you do.
Like if you're facing bowlers, train against bowlers.
Now there is an argument for it, like I shared an office with an
SNC coach from my PhD and we had this row.
And like he he doesn't have the overs to spend or the pitches to
spend in his bowlers in a week's training programme.
If he gets to like Thursday. And his bowlers have spent their
20 overs for the week and they've they've already spent
eighteen of them and he's got two overs left in their
tolerance for the next four days.
Like he's not letting them bowl in the Nets that day.
So maybe we won't have to use the batting machine and that's
OK. I guess it's it's how do we, how
do we encourage the bowler machine to become more
representative and have more bits of kind of non specifying
information and more context attached to it and more of the
purpose behind it. So if we're using the Bowler
machine because we can't use bowlers because we haven't got
any, well, ideal world, could we kind of replicate some of the
older, more traditional visual research studies and could we
get like a a big white projector screen in front of it and where
the ball gets released from, Can we cut out a hole in the screen
there? And can we project videos of a
bowler running in so when they release the ball from their
hand, it's actually the video ends with the release of the
hand up here and that's where the ball comes out of.
Then you might get something more real and might feel more
like the game. Can we have fielding positions
in place? Can we have a scenario?
Can we add things which gives it a bit more gain or or kind of
performance relevant information to support the use of that
around the back of the Bowler machine?
Because sometimes bowler machines are inevitable.
Sometimes we can't escape them in the winter.
If a batter wants to kind of bat against a bottle machine because
there's no bowlers around, like, that's fine, absolutely fine.
Like, why not batting batting against something rather than
batting against nothing is probably still going to help us.
I guess it's where you know when we want to add value.
If we're thinking about skill development specifically, then
maybe we might have to make the decisions to to incorporate more
reliable elements. If our purpose is on skill
development, let's get rid of the bowling machine.
And if our purpose is on, you know, I've got a batter that's
really out of form and they, you know, So case in point, for the
first, the second set in my PhD, we we added increasing bits of
contextual information, so the first condition may just batted
like a normal net session. So bowl is just running, Bowl
random deliveries. They're not really particularly
thoughtful, They're just bowling them.
Random sequence of bowlers like the gaps, like I'm pretty sure
you just stood in the Nets just batting things away for ages in
that, you know, batters are pretty comfortable.
If you get out, you get out. Like there's no real consequence
to it. You just kind of get reset for
the next delivery, which could be a spinner, it could be a same
bowler, it could be anything. Whereas when we started to add
kind of context and pressure to it and we said well now you're
facing the same bowler for a full over and you've also got to
score, you've got to score 15 runs within the over.
Like lot like batters really struggled and their their
batting mechanics got very rushed and very Hanford and
they're chatting to him after and it's like it's quite
speculative but they're saying they felt more, they felt so
stressed and they started having to have chase a scoreboard.
So they were timing shots much, much earlier because they were
chasing after the ball a little bit.
So all these bits of contextual information around it play such
an important factor. So if our purpose is skill
development, we've got to bring that stuff in.
And that's where I'd say, well then we've got to move bowling
machines out because, all right, yes, you get the ball trajectory
and you get your time to contact stuff, but that's not batting.
Batting is making use of all the different forms of replacement
that exist, all the stuff in the build up, the fact that where's
the weather changes, pitch to pitch, innings to innings, like
all those different things that are part of the batting
experience. And you know, the magic of the
ecological approaches is meant to be an embodied account of
perception, the fact that it it takes Organism in its
environment. And if we're going to appreciate
that complexity in those relations, we've got to ensure
that those relations are nested within any kind of training
environment we try to create. To that point when when you're
talking about finding ways to to infuse a little bit of say that
more representativeness or non specifying information into
those practices are is there kind of like a rank order that
you set up on things that you find most valuable on.
My mind goes to what's a minimum effective mix of OK, we have a
pitching machine do the constraint of being inside.
What are the the two to three variables that we want to add to
this to be able to make it more effective for the development of
skill? I mean there's there's no
hierarchy of stuff. It's just try stuff and see what
works. Like sometimes, like space
issues and time issues can dictate a lot of this stuff.
So, like, I'm not really a cricket coach.
A lot of this stuff just kind of comes from my understanding of
like constraints and thinking, oh, how I can design stuff.
So we used I I think the key one that we always use is, is
fielding locations. And if that can be kind of
replicated through like abstract objects, so there's a visual
thing they can see. So in the Nets you've got like
the actual Nets that run alongside and it might be like
taping some a four sheets of paper at various points along
the next to indicate there's a fielder within that line.
Or it might be that we just kind of we get a whiteboard.
We put the field down on the whiteboard and say to the
battle, this is the field and we're going to change it after.
You know if we feel like we were changing a game as a bowler,
we're going to change it. We'll tell you we've changed and
you can come see the board again and you can work out where your
gaps are. Think that's the important thing
for me because too often like batters go through the motions
and their next sessions just like just picking balls off and
slapping shots and you know they're middling it off the
middle of the bat and it sounds good and but you've got no idea
if they've not just middled it down like someone's throat who
just lovely lovely catch. So give it some purpose and make
them have to. I.
Think it's been really important that batting is more
intentional. I think that's the the the word
that I guess I put into a practice on is like, is what
we're doing intentional here? So I've got a battle, let's say.
I'll take me as an example. Anything which is not kind of
going way wide of my wickets, I'm done.
Crap. I can't.
I can't hit save my life. Anything coming anywhere near my
stamps like I'm guaranteed to get out.
So for me, in my next sessions, I'd make sure that I set the
bowler up to bowl lots of straight ones and say, you know,
that this batter, IE me, gets out very often to straight ones
towards his stumps. So the batters think the bowlers
ain't got an intention, the bowlers got an intention for how
they're going to bowl. So straight away we've we've
replicated some kind of performance environment.
Then we might set up a field which deliberately prevents me
from being able to play the shots I like.
So if it's coming straight down at me I I might try and come
across the line and play off my legs and try and flick it around
the corner. So what I'll do is I might make
sure there's a, you know, third man is up and I might just try
and play a slightly more heavy field on the leg side just to
stop me from being able to play those shots.
Because I know that I can keep doing it, but it's going to keep
going to field. There's not only any runs for
it. So I have to play straight, I
have to play into the covers. So that's going to therefore
encourage me and like expose me to that more often.
So I'm going to have to try and play those shots and if I'm
having to play those shots, I'm having to experience those shots
and that's only going to learn. That leads to, I'd argue like
more learning because I'm, I'm being exposed to the thing that
I'm bad at. I'm having to bat very
intentionally because without the field positions, I just keep
playing the same shot and just nick it off the legs and think,
oh, I've done one, I've done a nice one there, oh lovely.
When like in actual fact I just stuck it to another fielder.
So I think making sure that like the the, the wave of the
bowlers, the batters, the pitchers, whatever, we're
recording them, that their behaviours are really
intentional because their behaviours are going to be
really intentional when it comes to the game in four days time.
So if training can therefore be, and obviously there's other
stuff, like if we're no game day -1, I'm probably not going to
want overly burdensome practice designs with loads of decisions
that are quite tiring. Like there's some nuance to this
and this and like there's some like clever programming and just
good coaching stuff. I'm not going to want to stress
the life. Out of my batters the day.
Before a game. So it might be if we if we're
playing Saturday, on the Friday, I might get the bowling machine
out because it's nice and easy. They get in their groove, they
can just go knock a few balls around, feel good.
Because I know that on Wednesday, Thursday they're
they're facing environments that are really intentional and
creating a bit of stress and a bit of anxiety and feels a bit
more like the game itself. And that's where my learning's
taking place. And Friday, maybe it's more
about maintenance and making sure they're feeling good, ready
for the game the next day. So I think sometimes and I've
I've been really guilt with this as well, is forgetting that
there's more to there's more to skill, more to coaching than
just the skill acquisition bit. There is like a person on the
end of all of this who has kind of thoughts and feelings.
And as much as you know as coaches sometimes we wish they
didn't and they were just robots who did the things we want them
to do. Like it's not the case and I
think skill development is super holistic and I think that's
where we get value from the ecological approach.
Well, and that was kind of where to me.
If you truly appreciate ecological dynamics and the
constraint LED approach, you have to consider the person and
their psychological state in some ways.
But not not. Yeah, I think psychological
state is the right way to put it.
But I think that then plays into what you were talking about in
your research currently of skilled intentionality.
I think we because our intentions might shift as we're
interacting with things and you know going back to talking about
you applied you know more context to the practice
environment all of a sudden their behavior changed and so
that shifted their intentions I think to me like so this is
where I'm curious what how do you how would you defined define
skilled intentionality what is what is kind of the abstract
view of of this theory or this this concept.
And then and then I kind of want to play with play with it a
little bit but at least I think we need to start there and not
assume that I that my understanding is correct.
I want to or you know just have people assuming and then
potentially us being wrong like on specifying information.
Yeah, I mean I I don't have a textbook definition of skilled
intentionality handy, but like I only really initially I wasn't a
massive fan of the skilled intentionality stuff.
But like I've like I've I've got proper excited with the last
couple of years if it could just if it suited the data it suited
my project so nicely. But I guess skilled
intentionality is like the the skilled use of that landscape of
affordances like and if if we view affordances and our
relations to them and actually view affordances as existing
within relations, and if we we view that as being really nested
and occurring over lots of different time scales and not
necessarily just being the thing in front of me that I perceive.
So right now the the example that that got used quite a lot
was like, I can't directly perceive like the can of beer in
my fridge. I can't see it, but I know it's
there. And I also know that like the
need like for me to like quench thirst, IE the affordance is is
the beer can in the fridge. But I can't.
I can't see it, but I can still perceive the fact that it exists
and it has value to me and that it affords me the possibility to
drink. The skilled intentionality asks
you answers those more representation hungry questions
like the answers, the questions like where we are having to do
some thinking about objects which are not currently in front
of us. Like, I'm sat in my living room,
I'm not in my kitchen, I can't even see the fridge, but I know
the fridge is there. I know that if I open the fridge
there is a can of beer. So how do those kind of more
bigger meta problems get solved? And skilled intentionality
essentially aims to answer those questions, the fact that how
does an individual skillfully navigate that landscape of
affordances and that kind of satisfy the relations we have
with the environment. So in a cricket context it would
be very much like the, you know, in cricket you could bat for the
entire game. So unless you get out or you
declare, you could find yourself batting for like an entire 8
hour day and you being the person out there, keep facing
the balls or your partner at the other end.
So I I really liked the use of skill and intentionality in that
sense and the fact that it can it can be a nice framework to
address the real temporal nature of batting, the fact that it
this happens over a really long time.
So the work that I presented the other month with Sean Tyler was
looking at. So we we interviewed with like a
video stimulated interview. So we got the highlights from
the game they played two days before, sat down with each
batter and like just reflected and chatted about different
events and different moments within the highlights.
So some of the batters innings lasted like 2 hours, 3 hours.
Some of the batters like lost their wicket after like 3
deliveries. So the interviews are really
different in length and therefore their reflection's
really different. And one of the batters was like,
oh, I like I think she was like I think of nothing.
Like, there's nothing going through my head when I'm
batting. I'm just singing a Boy's own
song. And like, like her entire
innings, like she's quite a young player, score like 50 or
60 or something. But it was like, actually like,
I have no, I have no recollection of anything.
She was like, I was just singing a song.
I was like, because I don't know if I wasn't singing a song and
then I've been really frantic. But then other players were like
really thoughtful, Like I remember this ball, I thought
she was going to swing it away, but then it knit back in on me
and I had to get down to it late and had to play on the back for,
like I said, really detailed answers.
And it just made me think that like the levels of
intentionality, the different ways these batters are using
information, like there's something really unique and
individual in all of this and essentially I think corresponds
with the use of like a a landscape of affordances, The
fact that some batters are more skilled at doing that, some
batters have found a way to be skilled at using less of those
affordances. So I think standing back to that
use of like more kind of sensory and non sensory information.
Some batters were very aware of the non sensory stuff like the
scout reports, the scoreboard, all those things that kind of
are information in all of themselves but not necessarily
specifying in any way. Some batters were really aware
of that and that was quite an integral part of their shot
selection. Whereas some batters were like
yeah no I didn't like I didn't even look at the score like I
just I was just thinking I was enough for lunch.
Like it's like so all these different variations and it it
fitted really nicely with the the quiet eye work we published
a couple of years ago. And the fact that when you when
you stop generalizing participant data to a mean score
you actually just start to see these real unique variations in
performance. So both within individuals and
like between individuals. So you know a group of four,
each one of those four had slightly different like quiet
eye profiles IE how they perceived the the kind of the
key critical bit of information like differed quite quite quite
vastly. But then also within those
individuals themselves there was variation from trial to trial.
So this for me just corresponds with that.
But I'm just like an unlock an additional level on this like
intentionality level, the fact that intentions might be the
thing that shapes perception of different events.
The the hard bit is going to be how that how do I actually
evidence that because you know we can't conclusively say like
we can't see direct direct perception.
Like if you'd forgive the irony of it, like we can't see a
representation. We can see a series of like
neural networks and firing neurons.
And we've some people who assumed that means that's a
representation and some people who assumed that's just
resonance, like we can't see this stuff, that's the
difficulty. But I think, yeah, that's kind
of skilled intentionality. I tried to explain, you brought
up a couple of different things that I wanted to touch on.
I wanted to go at least to stay on intentionality, but I do want
to touch on resonance. So to me intentionality is like
a lens by which like you filter what information you're going to
either pick up or how you aim to interact with that information.
And so I feel like because right when you change the task
dynamics, you apply, you know you, you put in fielders and
then you give a consequence potentially or you give them a
goal of scoring 15 runs. All of a sudden now the way that
you aim to interact changes. But I think there's something to
the notion of being skillful in in picking out or deciding on or
what your intention is, right? So like a more skilled batter is
able to pick the an an intention that is going to match what they
need to do. A less skilled batter may pick a
different intention that is not going to functionally fit with
the task. And so I because to me when I'm
thinking about from a practice design standpoint the reason
that why I want these potentially more difficult
scenarios or that have different bits or slices of the game is so
that they can begin to attune to what type of intentions are most
successful. You know because they can also
become hyper focused on things that are you could say not
specifying And so and that's where I I the whole your whole
definition of specifying information is just kind of like
in some ways like blow my mind a little bit because now how do
you delineate in my mind like there's there's information
that's valuable versus information that is like it it
it is in the word of like contextual interference.
Like it's it interferes with with you being able to connect.
And I think there's a difference between to me how I was defining
specifying information was only was it just had to be relevant.
It was something that is useful for the task versus a lawful
thing. So that I'm curious at least on
that point like is there a way to delineate things that are non
specifying and non useful is that how you would have to term
it or you know specifying and or non specifying and useful like
that's that's where I guess on a side tangent, I mean that's kind
of curious. Now there's some nice stuff from
a guy called Ollie Brunswick whose whose work is it's
actually based in on the predictive processing stuff, but
looks at like when like contextual information is
incongruent with the actual actions.
So it was in cricket and when the field positions don't align
to the type of ball that's been bowled.
So in in in cricket you'll deliver, you'll bowl certain
types of balls based on your field positions because that's
more likely to get them out. But often times like wickets
have like bars have lost their wicket to a delivery which they
weren't expecting because they might have waited too much of
their focus on the context with maced around the field and may
have kind of pre empted a kind of delivery And then at that
point when it hasn't come. So potentially like there is
there is the point of information becoming or or or
stopping being as useful as it could be.
I guess it's based on like the weighting of that of how that
information is used which I think is what comes back to the
fact that you know if we're going to train in training
environments we've got to make sure this stuff is available to
the batters to be able to search through and search for to find
out what is going to be supportive action in terms of
delineating what's useful and what's not.
It's just really difficult and and I don't think we know like
like we can't know for certain that you know what they do in
their run up is for good or for evil.
In the same way that like. So kinematics are talked about a
lot in the visual search research, particularly around
like when we're perceiving someone throwing a projectile.
But then a lot of the cricketers we spoke to in the stimulated
recall in interviews paid very little attention to what the
bowler was doing kinematically. So there there is this
disconnect in kind of how people use information that there is
some you know just because we put eye trackers on someone and
that their their retinas are are moving towards different parts
of the body. Does that mean their intention
or their attention is actually placed there And it's more of a
question thrown up in the air more than anything like making a
point on anything but I don't think we know.
It's basically the point I'm trying to make and that we are
trying to generate an idea of this stuff.
But for one batter something might be useful, for another
batter it might not be. I think that's the the the the
point of the skilled intentionality is that.
That the. Purpose of it in the bowler
sense in those kind of intentions is to keep as many
potential affordances open as until as late as possible so
that selection can come much later, IE through using non
specifying information in the the in the the bowlers gather
and run up. I'm positioning myself to make
use of as many different affordances as possible for when
more specifying information is available.
I can then select the appropriate or select is the
wrong word there, but I can make a more effective action to
intercept the ball and kind of put it into a certain area.
I guess the other thing I would I wanted to explore is you know
the the the one, the one gal who she just had a song kind of
going in her head. To me this is this I think plays
a little bit towards the the question of resonance.
What I got from ecological dynamics is this sense that our
system will use information and coordinate based upon that
information. We might not even be consciously
aware of it. So for example, you know how
previous like that. To that quote, you know how
previous events will bias us towards the the next, the the
coming events. Well, if I am singing a song and
I'm not letting that information overly, I don't get overly
fixated on on on it, but rather I let because right in some ways
we're really good at picking up patterns and it becomes
intuitive, right. We intuit the pattern before we
can fully articulate the the thing that we're seeing
sometimes And so I guess we're where I'm going is, is how much
does it matter except for like kind of you know trying to
puzzle it out later. You know what what a person is
is necessarily saying because like in that in that example
like because This is why. For example when I hear hear a
player talk about like, so let's go Some of the research that
I've looked at with gaze behavior and hitters is that
some hitters or like novice hitters will look at parts of
the body that expert hitters tend not to.
Right. Like if you're still looking at
the chat or the like the the lead arm or whatever, when the
hand starts to come out, OK, maybe you're not looking in the
right area. But if you are successful and
you're looking at an area that doesn't seem to make sense, that
tells me that like oh, maybe you're using the periphery,
you're better at picking out periphery information and
utilizing it that way versus looking directly and having like
your focal point being there. And so I think that's that's
kind of to me my understanding of like part of what we're
trying to do with direct perception is open the system up
to being to be able to fully connect with the information
there and not cloud it with with something else and like hone in
on information that's not useful.
And I'm curious on this because Rob, Rob Gray talked about this
of you know when we use a batting or a a pitching machine
we can become attuned to non specifying information or we can
develop a a relationship with it that doesn't actually translate
to to the to the the the game context with with an actual
pitcher. So how do you how do you look at
that as far as like is it are they attuning to non specifying
information when they're when they're hitting off of a bowling
machine and that's why it's not transferring.
But if we're talking about like towel being there they're still
the the same specifying information.
So I guess what? What is it?
Do you have a different way of explaining that than how Rob was
talking about it? Without knowing the context that
Rob was talking about it in, I'm not sure I'd.
I'd be a brave man to go up against Rob anyway.
He is the He's the authority in this.
Space. Yeah.
I wouldn't want to go up. Yeah.
I wouldn't know the context which Rob was talking about
because in my like the bubble trajectory itself is is an
information variable that is specifying some kind of action.
The non specifying stuff in terms of the fact that it's a
bowling machine and that there is no run up and that there's no
you can't perceive the release point in that sense.
The fact that that kind of non specifying information isn't
there and therefore you're picking up on non specifying
information in the sense of the machine itself.
And so in cricket when you use the bowling machine, the person
like operating the machine will hold the ball in their hand, put
their arm directly up in the air and then feed the machine.
So in that sense, like if they're attuning to that action
as a trigger for the ball is about to be released like that's
that's maybe attuning to a non specifying information source
which will not transfer effectively.
So in that sense, if there's a similar mechanism within a
baseball pitching machine, in the sense that if they are like
if they are picking up on information from the person
operating the machine or in the sense that there is a a lag time
or a delay time between ball to ball.
If it's like an auto firing machine picking up of that
information which probably isn't conducive to performance even,
it translates into the actual, the game itself.
I guess my last kind of question is what are your what are your
thoughts on resonance? You know, when it comes to how
we become attuned to things like because to me it's all about the
pickup of information and then you know and then to me, you
don't necessarily need to be able to fully articulate it
because to me resonance and attunement like allow for more
of an an embodied, sort of like direct.
Interaction with with the with the information.
But I don't I don't know really know like the the full
mechanisms of it just other than like you become sensitive to the
information you're able to pick it up faster.
You'll be able to like, I don't know, again, kind of like a
radio wave, right. Like it's, it's matching pitch
in terms of like tone or frequency.
And so that's that's where I see like the the difference between
like information processing, you know, versus attunement and
resonance like that. That to me seems to be a more, I
don't know, direct or analogue way of interacting with the
world. Yeah.
I mean the resonance stuff comes from like the metaphor of that
Gibson used of like a radio transmitter and the fact that it
is like resonating to the signals that then generate like
the the the the the noise essentially.
But I I've, I've really struggled with that resonance
metaphor because because go and go for it.
Oh, well, because when I looked into the concept of resonance,
right, like things have, you know, for example, metal has a
frequency that it resonates at and what would it when you look
at like, well, what does that mean?
It means that for for the input in, it actually will like double
or something right, Like so for the same amount of input you're
actually getting more. And so I almost wonder if like
you know, when something resonates with you, all of a
sudden you it gives you more energy, you connect with it,
you're drawn towards it. And so I to me that's kind of
how I understand the concept of resonance or attunement.
Like you, you are drawn towards this thing and so like for
example, to become more attuned and sensitive to the information
that's going to help you most functionally execute the task.
That's kind of like to me the whole purpose of practice is
like when you become these, these things become more
intuitive like just in the way of that with a somebody who has
mastered something, things become really simple, right?
Like all this, you know, the things that would bog down a
novice. It's like well based upon the
the constraints of the situation, I'm able to hone in
very simply you know to me on these on this kind of notion of
like higher order variables, there's higher order things that
kind of like prioritize and I understand what the priorities
are and like I'm able to hone in very simply based upon these
like simple concepts. And so I don't know that's
that's for me at least how I'm trying to or how I I view like
attunement, resonance, like these things all of a sudden
they they give you more energy they they draw you in to the
thing And I think that's also related to affordances.
You know, why do we accept some affordances versus other
affordances. There's there's a post hoc
explanation. I can see the logic in that.
I mean like resonance traditionally was around like
the resonance between like the information and like the, the,
the neural signals essentially like the, the essentially like
the corresponding frequency of the information variables and
how that is then picked up by the perceptual system.
And then there's some stuff around like oscillating
frequencies, which then goes a little bit beyond me.
But yeah, my, my PhD supervisor always asks me he's always like
like what actually is achievement, like what is it?
And like, it's always like a becomes like a metaphysical like
debate about what achievement actually is.
And I'm I'm still not convinced that I've provided a sound
enough answer because I you end up falling back on other
metaphors, like resonance for example.
Yeah, so resonance. I've always found it's a bit of
a tricky sticking point in the theory, but as like a metaphor,
it does nicely explain essentially the the the
mechanics of their perception. In the sense that if there is no
resonance between the frequency of the information variables and
how we are picking them up, then there is going to be like a
corresponding relation between myself and that information.
So there's a metaphor, I like it in terms of mechanics.
I'm still trying to get my head around here.
That's fair. I think that's a kind of a
unless. AJ do you have anything or
Robert do you have anything that you want to any other questions
you want to ask before we we wrap it up?
No, I don't got anything because I think the question I wanted to
ask was regarding the residency you asked again.
Yeah, I I have one more just to wrap us up.
It'll be quick, but what's one thing that you think batters
should be doing more of that most currently aren't, that
you've seen in your research? Batting, like actually just
spend some time batting. That's a bit flippant.
But I, I, I'm on like the peripheries of this stuff from
just like seeing a few things on like social media and see a lot
of time like batters like doing a doing a lot of stuff on like
the shape of their like bat path.
And similar to golfers like spending so much time on their
swing and forgetting that there's actually a ball they've
got here at some point and that there's like another person like
a fair few meters away who's trying to stop you from having
that ideal back path and they're going to throw it to disrupt
that back path. So why not spend some time
making that back path more like or black.
I'm I'm using flipping terms but like why not spend more time
developing like that dexterity and that adaptability and the
ability to to really tightly couple perception and action.
And you know, I've seen some cricketers with with lovely
batting mechanics like they they look, they love, their shots
look good, but anything which is outside of their wheelhouse, any
delivery which has got like a little bit of shape to it and
like they fall. Apart.
And some of the best batters I've seen have been that.
Some of the most unconventional, ugliest batters.
But they are ultimately you are because of batter.
In any sport you are judged on your ability to make bat on bat
on ball contacts consistently, cleanly and effectively.
And if it looks like, if it look baggy, then it looks baggy like
who's who's who's really caring when the the ball's like
clearing the boundary. Like see I just think like let's
let's just allow batters to to spend a bit more time actually
batting and and coupling perception action.
Yeah, that. That's a great little quote to
to wrap it up. It's if you want to get better
at batting bat more. I guess on a, on a practical
note then what are some ways to to do that?
Like for example, in my mind like, you know, you talked about
because I mean you're talking about batters, but let's let's
flip it, let's talk about like pitchers in bowlers, right.
Like I don't know like would it not be just as efficacious for
them to pitch to hitters more. And then if you because to me
that's where the like where this practically goes is.
Like I don't know if if a if you're working on hitting you
need a pitcher present and vice versa.
Like you know if if a pitcher only has so much volume, you
know that they can they can throw in a day a good portion of
that if not all of it should be to a hitter like I don't to me
that just makes sense and so because then you can kind of
then supplement like you're saying with with a pitching
machine later. But I think that's that to me is
the the ideal and I think more people should try to figure out
that process because I think it's you know it's the same way
of like if you're going to you know do martial arts or whatever
like you can't really learn how to wrestle if you don't wrestle
against somebody else like. So that's at least my my thought
process there. I don't know Ben if you have any
other thoughts on on on practically how to how to
logistically make that work. It's all just come back down to
intentions really like the same thing.
I'm I'm a pretty good bowler when it comes to bowling at the
Nets and there's no batter involved like I'm I look I look
half good because the the the when the intentions change and
all of a sudden you're not just trying to like hit the wickets
you're trying to navigate a person who's trying to smash the
ball away that becomes a very different bowling becomes a very
different experience. And yeah, I think it's just run
like setting those intentions. And whether that comes very
literally in the design of our practice or maybe more like
maybe more kind of subtly in instructions and interactions we
have with the batters and bowlers.
Like are we giving our our performers instructions within
training that shapes their intentions?
Are we saying them to them like you know in training tomorrow
and maybe I might ask my my batter to, you know when you're
when you're in your in your in your batting group tomorrow,
just just go after it just just try and score as big as you can.
Are we like allowing them to kind of be shaped by those
different intentions. So when it comes down to it,
like potentially we might be able to get those elements to
transfer into the performance environment if they're more
exposed to batting with that particular set of intentions.
But but yeah, I think ultimately, you know Garrett,
your points, your points there like bats and bowlers, get them
set up together. What types of resources would
you recommend to people? There doesn't even have to be
ecological dynamics or whatever. Just anything that you think
would be good and helpful for people, resources.
And then two, where can people find you if they want to connect
with you? Only because it's a lot of what
I'm reading at the moment, like anything by people like Oliver
Randswick, Sean Miller, like those kind of guys.
Just like just just wicked research that's not framed
ecologically but just answering some like really, really good
questions and where you can find me.
I am that. I'm on Twitter, but I'm not not
on it a lot or not as much as I used to be and I can't remember
what my hat is. I can't know.
I don't think it's. It's like, well, let's see.
I mean I can throw it in the. Arab.
Comments here? It doesn't matter.
Social media is overrated, right?
See, it's Ben under score, Franks one.
There we go. So, all right.
Well, thanks for coming on. It's been a pleasure chatting
with you. And until next time, everybody.