For a different kind of coaching, I remember years ago reading something, maybe an interview, in which Tony Robbins described learning marksmanship by inquiring in detail of an expert marksman what perceptions he was controlling. I’m not sure after all this time if he used the word “control” but I am certain he said perceptions and if not “control” then a word of similar meaning. Interesting guy. Saw a documentary about his work last year.
···
On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 4:29 PM, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Rick, thanks for this, it’s very close to how we ended up seeing the study. I didn’t go as far as making it clear that actually our ‘motor’ condition was perception too (which if PCT is correct, it must be), but Carla realised that soon after piloting it. I think I felt that we should use a comparison group that at least on the surface tried to instruct what all other theories implicitly or explicitly assume - that outputs are controlled. We saved these kind of issues for the Discussion. It sounds like you Are a big fan of applying PCT in the real world, given the list of applications you have generated! All three have huge potential don’t they?! And I agree that there would be a struggle to show a PCT Method of sports training is superior to top end coaching, but maybe in the comparison condition we can interview coaches to explore or code the kinds of CVs they imply and the veracity at which their coaching resembles PCT principles.
Talk to you soon,
Warren
On 3 Sep 2017, at 20:50, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.09.03.1250)]
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 6:38 PM, Warren Mansell wmansell@gmail.com wrote:
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WM: Our press office has asked whether our research has led to any direct applications with organisations, such as sports teams. I don’t know if any. But it made me think of a simple study. It’s an RCT but bear with me…
RM: I presume you mean Randomized Controlled Trial rather than Rick’s Control Theory;-)
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WM: Participants are asked to try to catch s fly ball thrown towards random locations on a pitch, none of which require great physical exertion to reach in the time before the ball lands. Each participant is randomly allocated to one of three conditions:
-
- training in how to centre the image of the ball laterally in the visual field with a constant velocity of the image up the retina (PCT based on your research)Â
- training in how to predict where the ball will land by observing its trajectory
- a comparison condition which is either no training or ‘standard’ coaching
We measure the distance from the location at which the ball lands from the location of the participant when the ball lands.
We predict condition (1) to have a shorter distance
A more sophisticated version of this study would have shoulder mounted cameras whose data could be analysed for its match with a PCT model and those with a tighter match would be predicted to be nearer the ball.
What do you think?
RM: Before becoming a math teacher my son spent about a year after college being a tennis pro, which just meant he taught tennis at a local tennis club. His main job was to help improve the game of people who already knew how to play. I suggested that his coaching might be more effective if he gave instructions in terms of what to perceive rather than what to do. I wasn’t really clear on how to do this but I thought, for example, that the way to teach a forehand volley was to tell the student to feel the wrist being stationary rather than to hold the wrist stationary while stroking the ball, the former being a description of what to perceive and the latter a description of what to do.Â
RM: But I now realize all instructions must be instructions about what to perceive. We can’t be told what to do (how to act) because we only know our acts as perceptions. When you tell someone what to do you are necessarily telling them what to perceive. So in the study you report in JMB, I see the difference in conditions not as one of instructing about actions versus perceptions but, rather, of instructing about different kinds of perceptions. One group got a description of the pattern to draw; the other got a description of drawing movements that could result in the pattern.Â
RM: Obviously, the group given instructions about the pattern to draw made more accurate pictures of the pattern than the group given instructions about the movements to make. But in both groups, people were producing perceptions – one group producing a perception of a pattern, the other other a perception of movements. And both were controlling those perceptions equally accurately. You would have seen this if you had had some judges estimate the accuracy of the movements made by those in the “movement” group without telling the judges what resulting pattern the movements were supposed to make.Â
RM: So I think what your study shows is not that “perception” instructions are better than “motor” instructions but, rather, that instructions should at least start by describing the desired end result to be produced. Once people know where they are supposed to arrive you can start giving instructions about what perceptions to control in order to get there.
RM: As far as your proposed research project,  I think you would see a small difference in catching behavior between people told how to control the optical variable versus those told how to predict the path of the ball, with the latter group doing slightly worse. But I think it would only show up in people who don’t already know how to catch balls; and such people would be pretty hard to find, I imagine, especially one’s who could also understand your explanation of how to predict the ball’s path (which rules out most 4 year olds).Â
RM: I do think an understanding of PCT could help improve teaching skills, but I think these improvements will come from learning what variables are (or should be) controlled when carrying out these skills. Good coaches probably know what variables skillful performers control, can tell their students what variables to control and can see when their students are (and are not) controlling these variables. Coincidentally, Gary Cziko and his lovely wife Carol were over here last weekend and Gary suggested another way PCT might be used to improve performance: by providing relevant perceptions that should be controlled but are not normally perceived, such as the rate of energy expenditure while doing a bike race (Gary is very into bicycle sports, among disconcertingly many other things). I don’t know if that was the exact example Gary gave – if he’s listening maybe he can give some of the examples he talked about – but I think Gary’s idea about providing artificial access to perceptual variables to which we don’t naturally have access is another way to improve performance based on an understanding of behavior as the control of perception.Â
WM: In terms of the question, ‘but does this science actually make any difference in real life?’, it seems to be an important study to run.
RM: I’ve already stated my reservations about the ball catching study you propose. But your question also makes me realize that I am not generally a fan of trying to do things that show that PCT science makes a difference in real life. I do like to think that PCT has some practical implications. I’ve done some work showing the practical implications PCT for doing task analysis (the PERCOLATe system that you mention in the JMB paper) and for selecting policies that reduce medical error ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/5z6mswgmxdk5dmr/ModelPrioritize.pdf?dl=0). And your work on MOL is certainly a powerful practical implication of PCT that demonstrably makes a difference in real life.Â
RM: But, for me, PCT makes a difference in my real life simply by being PCT. My feeling about it is nicely expressed in this poem by William Carlos Williams; just read “PCT” wherever it says “poems”:
My heart rouses
           thinking
to bring you news
                          Â
of something
that concerns you
           and
concerns many men. Look at
                          Â
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
           despised
poems.
                          Â
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
           yet men
die miserably every day
                          Â
for lack
of what is found there.
Best regards
Rick
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Given a couple of years, I could run it as an undergraduate or Masters project (my current allocations are full - including MOL for counter-radicalisation, a loudness tracking study, and a study of whether training in the TCV enhances judging ability on the Turing Test!)
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Talk to you soon I hope!
–
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery