Learning to Fight - Brandon Thomas PhD - Episode 20

Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill

After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill.

Your hosts are:

Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens, BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Student of Matt Thornton and SBG's philosophy of 'aliveness'.
Scott Sievewright — Co-Owner at Primal MKE, MMA skills coach and obsessive student of how humans learn to move and fight. 

Together, we dive deep into the art and science of coaching, training, and skill development in combat sports.
 Expect honest conversations about MMA, striking, grappling, practice design, contemporary research, traditional approaches, ecological dynamics, and the messy realities of learning under pressure.

No gurus. No dogma. Just two coaches trying to understand fighting a little better each week.

Same curiosity. New lens.
Learn how to learn.
Find your own style.
Thrive on the mats—and in the cage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Well, this is a treat for me. Two things. We have Rory Singer standing in for Adam Singer today. And I have a special guest, uh Professor Brandon Thomas from the University of Whitewater. And uh I'm gonna be a little self-indulgent today. Probably might not get too much into fighting, but Professor Brandon is a professor of ecological psychology in the University of Whitewater, and uh I have got all sorts of questions to ask him. Dr. Brandon, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I'm doing pretty well. It's uh nice to be here with y'all today and uh excited to talk about some of these issues. Uh there's not a whole lot of ecological psychologists in in these parts, so it's nice talking to some folks about it.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Yeah, so um to get started, uh I thought it would be a good starting point. One of the challenges Rory and Adam and I have as coaches is when we we're trying to talk about these ideas of maybe different uh approaches and methodologies to training and learning skills. Um, people still very much have these really strong baked-in assumptions of how the body learns, what the body and the brain might be doing. And I think it's important to say if if you're stuck with these assumptions, it'll never make sense. So I thought perhaps, and remember, we're speaking mostly coaches and fighters, and for Rory and I's benefit, maybe go gentle on us. I'm looking forward to getting into the mid-igready, but maybe just a gentle onboard and then maybe talk about the kind of different ontologies, the different assumptions and where to compare and contrast between traditional cognitive model and more of an embodied ecological model. Does that question make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yeah, definitely. Um I think uh um the I think the most general way to think about the difference between them is that the traditional cognitive model is pretty abstract. Uh like it it involves sort of um describing how we take everything in the world and we turn it into a completely different experience that we have that is kind of different from the way the world actually is. Uh so I think that's um it struggles with handling skilled action in particular, being able to describe how we do that because that's more of a uh a real-time type of activity. Uh it's uh is uh a little bit more geared towards trying to describe the uh the internal processes that uh allow us to make a copy of the world and then how we use that copy of the world to kind of interact within it. So it inherently has some distance between like the real world and our experience of it because it's a little bit more indirect in the assumption that uh we experience a copy of the world that's uh different from the world itself, and then we somehow have to translate that into real world actions uh in interacting with it, I think is the biggest difference between the two. Uh and from an ecological perspective, the emphasis is more so uh on the uh organism's behavior within the ecological niche. So uh things like context are not really uh these kind of add-on uh sort of external variables, but it's all uh kind of uh a part of the way that uh perception and action evolves over time. Uh so I I think it's uh a little bit more um useful and straightforward in explaining things like skilled action for that reason.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

So if I can perhaps when I'm talking of fire, is we take the idea of of perception and action. Uh I think most people can grasp grasp that, right? We see something, we do something. I'm really bringing it down here. But there's this conventional wisdom that yes, we'll maybe see something, but our brain's doing all these complex calculations and retrieving memories and making predictions and blah blah blah, and then it selects uh actions that are you know uh appropriate at the time. And ecological psychology and ecological dynamics kind of rejects all that. When you talked about having a copy in the brain, we're we're now talking about representations. Would you mind fleshing that out a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, yeah. So um the uh the basis for the cognitive um emphasis on representation uh probably traces it traces back further than this, but probably the most recent place it traces back to is like the Helmholtz theory of unconscious inference, which is like the assumption that the sensory information is not good enough to perceive the world. Uh so to explain how we perceive the world, it's like we must like apply some sort of other thing to it to make sense of it, uh, kind of a thing. Uh so it's like we take um memories that we have or uh predictions, like you said, that we're making about the environment, and we base our actions on those rather than directly basing them on the environment itself. Uh and I think it's because the assumption, like in the first place, is that we can't perceive the world directly. Uh so we must uh have a really sophisticated process for being able to make it uh as good as possible at predicting what's actually in the real world. Uh so I think because uh the the starting point was the assumption that sensation isn't enough to perceive the world, so that we have to apply all of these other cognitive processes and mechanisms to it uh to try to explain um how we're able to do that. And I think um that at the base level, representation is just a copy of the world that we experience cognitively. Uh but then uh the explanations of how we use it to interact with the world involve all sorts of sophisticated other processes like, you know, um everence copies, like stuff like the idea that uh we send a signal to our body and kind of compare that to the predictive sensory information that we're gonna get. And uh that's how we perform those real world actions. So it's almost like there's a middleman like in between um how we sense the worlds and then how we actually interact in it.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

And that middleman, I think we all have this kind of intuitive sense that there's we're sitting behind our eyes and we're steering the machine, right? And yeah, that that comes up against some there's a there's an explanation gap there, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, definitely. There's a sort of a comuncular problem, or you know, the idea that there's this um, you know, uh sentience entity that exists within us that uh is actually experiencing the copy of the world that we create through representations. Uh so it's it's hard to kind of, you know, it's hard to that that that ends up being sort of a philosophical quandary because who is the ghost in the machine, you know, that's actually making decisions? Uh where does the free will come from? Is it this entity inside the head that's interpreting the sensory stimuli on top of the um top-down type of signals that are being sent? So it's it's um it definitely creates some some philosophical problems. I think it's oftentimes referred to as the homuncular problem.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So that's quick question. So I guess since this is sort of how we interpret the world and perception action and direct, I think I think that's what you believe as well. And you're talking about this this other way in which people think all these things occur, homunculars and maps and copies and things we have to. Why is why do those two things really? I just wanted to know why those two things are such an odds? Why is there this big fight, so to say, that there's a group of people who think this is how we perceive the world and it is indirect, because if you put something in the middle and it can't be direct and we're over here saying no, perception, action are coupled, if you perceive to act and action perceived, why does that hit such it hit such a head with one another?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

It's a great question. Um I think it's just sort of a like it's a it's almost like a different starting place. Uh and I think also the like the like the like the causality, what is being thought of is like the impetus for the cause of things is different as well. Like so uh the um focus for basic information processing or indirect perception types of approaches uh is that it's um uh is that it's uh uh we must uh be able to uh explain how we represent information from the world and then interact with it in a secondhand way. And then with direct perception, the idea is that the stimulation itself is enough to explain uh how we perceive things. So I think it it's just a a different starting point. I I find when because I've I uh went to um uh the University of Cincinnati and was in uh program with nothing but ecological psychologists. And then since then I've been in places where there's not a whole lot of other ecological psychologists aside from me. Uh and so uh I almost feel like I have to code switch like when I'm talking to different people uh because it's just a completely different set of terminology. Um, you know, a lot of the terminology from infantry information processing theory or indirect perception comes from computer science, uh, and so the terminology in ecological psychology uh comes a little bit more from like physics and ecology, I would say, generally speaking. So I think there's even sort of a different language that exists. But the really weird thing about it is that there's if you actually look at the two approaches, the differences are really not that different from each other. Uh like you could almost, and people have argued this before, um, that's uh you could almost like describe information itself, uh like the ecological notion of information, which is uh the idea that there's these structured energy patterns that allow us to basically perceive actions before we do them. Uh like some people have even argued that that in and of itself is sort of a representation, like uh like maybe I think an example might help. So um, like uh a classic uh ecological paradigm is uh like a step-on ability task where people perceive the maximum step that they can step on type of a thing. Uh and um through some of those studies they found that uh it depends on uh you know some factors that have to do with like your flexibility and stuff like that, but mostly it has to do with like the eye height information you have about your leg length. Uh so that has to do with you know how the step is scaled with respect to how high your eyes are off the ground, uh more than anything. And you could make the argument that that is like an external representation, because it's not it's not the same thing as the actual environment itself. Uh like so there have been people that have argued that ecological psychologists have just pushed the representation into the world, but that otherwise it's kind of the same notion. Um, I don't know if I quite agree with that, but uh it's definitely a viable, you know, sort of philosophical position to have, I think. So uh in some ways there's giant differences between the two, in other ways they're like they're like exactly the same.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Nicole, I appreciate that. Scott, that floor is yours for the rest of the show.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

So um I I had a question about the representation on in the optic area, but I'm gonna skip past that just now. So I I think I'd like to not get into fighting our skills line or whatever, but why some of these assumptions kind of can cause a problem for coaches like us who are maybe trying to get people and our athletes to start thinking it a different way. So and I'm gonna I it's not my intention to make a strong man here, but I I think what I'm about to say is probably a traditional view that we learn movements and we develop movements over time through repetition. And in many ways, because the way the sport is and the way many sports are, we can kind of develop these movements themselves out of context and then just plug them back into the game in the context. So there's the initial assumption that um and you'll you know the word more uh muscle memory gets thrown around, you know, it's just a ubiquitous term just gets chucked around here. But there's this idea that we practice a movement, we get better at that, certainly, the more and more we do it to some kind of idealized technique. But this idea of kind of a muscle memory or a stored motor program, um, would it be fair to say that uh and I think that's quite a well accepted throughout our community, do you think it's fair to say that ecological psychology and ecological dynamics kind of reject that in favor of you know self-organization, coordinate structures, blah, blah, blah? Um do you have anything to say about that or the maybe what the problem is of uh a motor program or muscle memory?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, um uh so I I would say that's true, but that ecological psychologists sort of um um reject the notion of muscle memory, at least the at least the traditional version of it, which is, I think, um, if you were to explain it in a technical sense, is like the notion that you um store uh different uh patterns of neural activity that are related to uh various skilled muscle movements uh that you can kind of recall into your memory and use uh in various uh situations. Uh, and I think that ecological psychology uh rejects that notion, um, generally speaking. But uh the idea that you're able to kind of improve over time through practice is is something uh that I think that people from a colloquial sense are usually describing when they describe muscle memory, uh just the notion that you can remember skilled actions and that you can kind of frame them, like get better over time at them. Uh I would say that ecological psychology just has like a different explanation for how that works. It's more so uh just about how you tune uh your sort of um perceptual systems over time that you like as you practice different skilled actions, uh you start to perform them in different ways that have to do with the context, and then over time those uh movements become more repeatable and more adaptive to different uh situations.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Is the issue is the issue mainly then because like we said, you know, they're butting heads, they're very different. There might be some similarities, but like you butt heads with someone who's like, no, this is you know, we're gonna recall memories and and programs and things of that nature, computer science type stuff. Uh is my training. So here is the problem that as an ecological dynamics or proponent that we can't say where that all sits. Like where people are trying, people like yourself, and I mean, are trying to figure out where is all this happening? And is it the fact that we can't really say where these not memory is and memories or things that we believe between perception and action, where that sits. Is that the reason why people are so unwilling to accept it because there's no yet real explanation?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah, I I think I think that's a great way to describe it. Yeah, I think it it is sort of a a localization type of a thing. I think um more so with information processing uh perspectives. So I mean they literally will look for the different areas of your nervous system that process different things. Uh so they're trying to isolate them in in specific areas of your body. Uh and uh it's also the notion that you're sort of like abstracting it almost away from the environment, that you're taking it out of the context that it was originally in and then applying it to a different context uh later uh as well. Uh so there's uh definitely some differences in where the causality is stemming from. Uh, and it's an information processing theory, it's all the nervous system uh for the most part that's kind of centrally uh commanding all of uh your body and how you interact with the environments, uh, and that you have to internalize the environment in order to uh actually interact with it. Uh so with ecological dynamics or ecological psychology, um, it's not something that happens at the level of the nervous system. Uh it's more so that something that happens within the organism interacting with the environment. So it doesn't really have like a you're not really looking for a place uh that it stems from.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

You're more so looking for the um uh the the patterns of behavior and the sensory or the you know the the um uh the perceptual information that allows people to perform some of the the skilled actions instead of looking for the location that processes that information and when it comes to so this is something that uh Rory, Adam, and I we're always sending training clips back and forward, and we have this uh you know, we have this clip saying anything but the thing. So I think the biggest violation in sport is that when we we strip that context away. So we're we're we might be doing fighty things, but we're doing it in a completely different context, which doesn't necessarily map onto you know the reality of performance. I sometimes without without an interacting partner, we might be hitting a bag or punching the air or maybe hitting some pads or whatever. Uh so there's a lot of this goes on in martial arts, and this is what we've kind of been pushing back to. Doesn't mean that every time we come in the gym we need to beat each other up and have a fight, but it does mean that we should have some relative context there. It should be two bodies interacting and picking up on that information and figuring it out as we go. Um, so would it be fair to say that uh with regards to when we change a context, we're really changing the behavior and the task requirements, we're really doing something else.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, I think that's a that's an excellent point. And that is that is something that I think is a pretty important contribution of ecological psychology uh is in what types of trainings athletes should perform that actually influence their performance, uh per se. Uh like I I always um I always think about like the the combine for the NFL, uh like where they do these uh you know tasks that really don't have anything to do with playing football, like uh, you know, how high people can jump or uh, you know, like how far they can throw, stuff like that. And it oftentimes doesn't correlate with how good they are um with you know actually playing the the sport. Uh and um a lot of the research that like Jeff has done, for instance, has shown uh that skills that you learn in an athletic context tend to be very context dependent. Uh so uh he um he did this study where uh he had people um like pass through uh these barriers uh and he had people do it that were rugby players and people that were football players and then people that were non-athletes do it. Uh and he found that when they wore shoulder pads, which you wear shoulder pads in football but not in rugby, uh they found that uh there was no difference between how good the non-athletes and the rugby players were at rotating their shoulders to go through the opening, uh, but that the football players were better at like accommodating their uh shoulder pads, even though it's just an extra few inches uh on the width of their shoulder. Uh so that sort of highlights just how context-specific a lot of the skills you learn are. Uh and so I think a lot of trainings that are based on information processing approaches are more abstract. So like they have to do with like taking, trying to find the relevant aspect of the environment and taking it out of that environment so you can learn it independent of the environment that you're in. Uh, when really the the best way to learn a skilled action is to perform it in context uh in some way or another. Uh and I think that's uh probably one of the major contributions to things that would affect like how you train athletes, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

It's funny you mentioned the combine because had my brother been sitting in this chair instead of me, he would first just tell you how much he loves the combine. My brother's a giant football fan. He's going to the draft, which is in a couple days in Pittsburgh. Uh but he has also had that same conversation with Scotty on the podcast, even, and I'm sure and I've had it with him in person, is that they have all this film of these athletes from high school to college, and then they make them run and do these out-of-context things and move them up and down draft boards. But all they should be doing is just watching them play the game. Like just just like you said. He would he would have appreciated that you said that. Scotty's not a big football fan. Well, he's the big the real football, not the American football, I should say.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Right, right. So again, this this idea that we're we can program our athletes, that we can program these moves into them and we're gonna you know refine and store these these m motor patterns or motor programs in in the in the mind and the brain, seems reasonable, seems plausible. If if you had a few sentences to say what the what the issue is maybe with that, or why that perhaps doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Do you have anything to say on that? Or is it still is it is still uh is this still a robust debate that there may very well be storing motor programs?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, so um I I would I would call a general description of a motor program uh some sort of pattern of activity uh in the central nervous system uh that's uh corresponds to movement of your body in some way or another. Uh and um a lot of um action-related theories that exist around motor programs use uh like feed-forward models, which is the idea that basically you have the motor program that's stored with the expected sensory feedback that you're going to get. Uh, and uh that you compare the actual sensory feedback that you get to the predicted sensory feedback is what the how I would say the like a general description of how a motor program works. Uh so the the idea from an athlete training perspective would be to uh build a a really you know uh um like thorough and uh well-practised series of motor programs for whatever uh the action is. And probably the idea would be to make it as you know context unspecific as possible, just uh so it would be something that is more adaptable to different circumstances. Uh and uh I think that from a practical perspective, that that that idea is probably lost, I would guess. I mean, I'm not a sports psychologist, so uh it's uh I'm not as familiar with uh you know what is big in the field versus not at this moment, but um I know that ecological psychology has had a lot more success in being able to um create uh different things like um training programs that are more effective and and things that uh you know are able to account for how people perform different skilled actions. Uh but um uh I think from the perspective of how effective it is, that there probably isn't much of a debate. Uh but from a theoretical perspective, I imagine there still is a pretty pretty big debate uh that we're probably losing for the most part. So that we're definitely the minority from you know, like in our fields, uh ecological psychologist build.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Here's my issue with the mortal program. Um after I I mentioned I'm revisiting some of the information processing stuff through my master's program, which has been really fun, you know, to look more into the IP stuff. And so if we look at Schmidt's idea of a general Mort program and your recall and recognition schema, we're kind of whatever movement we're doing, we're kind of proving from kind of memory, our past experience, and then we're re further refining it by the the real-world feedback that we're getting. We got that kind of s uh sums up uh Schmidt's GMP stuff. So my choice is okay, so perhaps we have that, but if we we're trying to start a movement from a uh novel position or a different weight distribution, do we have a MORA program to get to that motor program and then to that motor program? And then you know, it just becomes all absurd when we start thinking about these kind of clean MORA programs that we're selecting.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I I wouldn't I would agree with that. Um there's certainly uh issues with um you know how we would actually store that information, issues with uh how we would uh recall it in some instances and not other instances. And then um I think uh like the biggest issue with um memory based motor programs uh is the fact that it's so different from the other types of memory that exist. So uh it's like the whole field of memory was built on um uh like uh what's called episodic memory. Or people's memory for like stuff that's happened in their lives, like you know, your memory for what you ate for breakfast, for instance, uh and all that work for the most part. The what the methods are is they just like give people lists of words and then there's some sort of retention interval and they have to remember as many as possible. Uh and a lot of the assumptions about how motor programs are stored and how they're um retrieved is all based on uh that research that was done on episodic memory. Uh, but the problem is it's so different uh from uh like remembering a list of words. Uh it's uh a lot easier to specify like um exactly what a successful recall would look like when you're remembering a word, uh, because you remember the exact words versus not remembering the exact word. Uh but in recalling a motor program, whether or not you perform a remembered action in a way that's based on the motor program is uh almost never the case. Like there's always differences in the way that you perform a skilled action, even if it's something that you've performed over and over again. Uh so it's um I think uh not I think it's based on a sort of flawed understanding of how memory works from the first place, uh, and it really hasn't translated well into motor memory uh as much as it does for like the episodic memory or like your memory for facts and stuff like that, uh type of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

It seems like it all takes so long. You have to even just in describing it that something is happening, I'm having to recall or pull some program, somebody's gotta do some stuff, and then that thing's still happening, and then I'm fast enough in my thought process to extract all that from somewhere and then run that program as if that program would still be the thing I need when scores enlife in itself, I guess, just happens so very quickly. Talk about the split seconds where you're getting in car crashes or you're slipping on ice or all these things that are happening, or the fact that a ball comes from a pitcher to the hitter in like, I don't know, point something seconds, where if you just hit three of them out of out of ten, you're a Hall of Famer. It's just like how do we how would we even access that so quickly? How do you get someone to dis to disown that idea that they can access all of that so quickly and then perform it in the moment of an action?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah, it's a it's a great point. It's uh definitely a a um weakness of the information processing approach is in describing like real-time action uh because uh it really does sometimes at like a millisecond scale matter, uh, kind of how quickly you can actually adapt uh to uh the information that you're getting from the environments. And uh a really good example of that is um this study that was done by Scott Kelso and a few other folks. I can't remember who else did it, uh, but they basically had people like speaking these different words, uh, and they would uh like randomly like disrupt their jaw so that um uh it would have an effect on their ability to pronounce the word. And they were able to like compensate for it in an amount of time that is quicker than it would take the signal to actually reach your central nervous system and come back. Uh so it's actually sort of disproved the fact that there's some sort of motor program that was being accessed to deal with that perturbation from the jaw being disrupted. Uh so that is uh a really good example of how the uh motor program or information processing approach struggles with dealing with real-time types of uh behaviors.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

So we're starting to move, you know, imply here self-organization. So if we put motor programs to aside, maybe they're there, maybe they're not. Um can you explain a little bit, certainly much better than I do, what self-organization is within an organism environment uh relationship? What what self-organization, like how do we self-organize? What what do we mean by it?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

It's uh it's a great question. Um self-organization, I feel like, is kind of a slippery term. Like there's different ways that you can go about uh describing it. Um the the one that um I like to use to describe it uh usually is uh the sort of classic Bernstein with uh hammering a nail uh example. Like he um was uh uh uh a um physiologist that studied um skilled movements, and he would study like how people hit things with a hammer. Uh and uh he found that like people would have all sorts of variability in the actual arm movement itself, uh, but the points that they would hit with the hammer was always the same. Uh so uh the idea is that there's like multiple things that could lead to an intentional action. Uh but uh what ends up happening is is self-organized around the goal of that action. Uh so uh it explains why there's a ton of motor variability and there's no way of getting around motor variability uh because uh it's not a system that is directed uh in like a you know pre-programmed way, uh, but instead it's it's something that has uh some sort of uh endpoints uh that is structured in a really causal way, uh, but that there's multiple ways that it could be realized, and how it's realized always depends on sort of the context of the situation. Um so it's uh sort of like a pattern where the causality itself exists within the entire system instead of uh any given part of the system.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

I feel that's another kind of nail in the coffin and mortar programs. If we think there's a thousand ways to skin a cat, we would need a thousand different cat skinning motor programs. You know, add that into nail.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, yeah. It would it's hard hard to explain how people could spontaneously kind of uh come up with these different uh ways of performing the same action, uh, even though that's the rule. Like that's what we do all the time. So it's it's not like the rule is that we do the same thing the same way every time. Uh it's uh it tends to be the other way around. So I think motor programs would have a hard time describing the spontaneity of action in that way.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Um don't they kind of struggle to perhaps explain novel actions too? I mean, I think if we if we really look deeply, every single movement we make is novel. So always in a new context, there's always some kind of so we're never making the same move twice. And uh that that again that struggles for me to map on the idea of this this stored motor program that we're retrieving.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah, most most certainly. And I think that also um gets to sort of uh uh uh an athletic training point as well, which is uh, you know, I think um some athletic training programs will sort of drill a really specific um type of movement. And the idea is that that movement is something that you can access in any context and keep sort of performing it the same way, uh, even though that usually is not how skilled action sort of evolves over time. Like um uh like uh I I play I played baseball for most of my life, uh, and um hitting is one of my favorite things to do because of how hard it is, uh, and uh because of how good it feels when you actually do hit the baseball. Uh but uh I I can remember having to make adjustments, and then when I would make those adjustments, it would create other issues in my swing. Like so uh I for a while was hitting a lot of ground balls, so my coach told me it's uh bend my knees a little bit more, and uh, I started hitting the ball in the air a little bit. Uh but then I struggled with being able to catch up to high heat. So uh it ends up being this uh sort of um evolution of adaptations that you have to make uh in order to be successful at uh most um uh most uh athletics. And so uh it's not about necessarily creating a perfect motor program that you can apply in every context, uh, but instead trying to sort of continuously evolve with the circumstances around you that are also evolving.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Uh I want to circle back to Bernstein here. And so when I bring and Rory does it too, so when we bring in brand new athletes, first day or whatever, we immediately have them putting them in some context. They're not beating each other up, but they're moving around, they're just practicing the interaction, so to speak. But it always looks clumsy and clunky and slow and stiff. And what I try and remind them is this I always say that this is a feature of learning, it's not a bug. Uh I wonder if you could maybe talk a little bit about the the that process. And maybe this is more on the kind of sports side, but they claim that it's free uh freezing and freeing of degrees of freedom as the system is kind of learning a new skill.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah. It's a really uh interesting point, and um it sort of goes against uh like conventional thought on it as well, too. Like uh you would think that somebody who's an expert at something would have uh less degrees of freedom that they're manipulating, like more of a sort of uh robotic type of a response. But uh it turns out that usually experts at uh an athletic skill uh tend to have uh a ton of degrees of freedom that they're able to use, uh oftentimes even in creative ways. So usually novices tend to freeze as many of the degrees of freedom as they can uh so that they can uh perform you know actions that's uh are goal-specific in a way that doesn't involve uh having to uh deal with a lot of different factors at once. Uh but then as you get more and more skilled, you tend to be able to exploit those degrees of freedom uh more and more, uh, which um I think some of the best at some of the best athletes uh tend to be the most uh sort of fluid and flexible, I feel like.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

And I feel this is like a just a necessary part of learning. You can't it's a process, it's a stage, and of course, it's that when we're learning any new skill. Granted, that if someone's an experienced mixed martial artist, they might be able to add new techniques more readily and more you know, freely and fluidly because you have all that kind of context and capabilities. But this isn't a stage that can be jumped, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

We usually ask this question that has not been brought up by both you gentlemen, the same word that we usually ask people to define. And the man played baseball and hit a baseball, he's an athlete, he's talking about skill. Randon, what are you doctor, what do you think? How would you define a word skill? I've never given that any thoughts. If you haven't, then don't let me put you on the spot. But you said skill, Scotty said skill. We usually ask our guests who are usually coaches and martial artists and things of that nature, how do they define the word skill?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I would say um that's a really first of all, it's a really good question. Um I've never really thought of it like specifically, but I do have an answer. Fantastic. I think that's uh I think that skill is uh the relationship between intentions and outcomes. So like so I think somebody who's skilled at an inaction is able to produce a specific outcome through their behavior. Uh and somebody who's unskilled is less reliable at being able to do so, or maybe can't do it at all.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Scotty, that was intentions and actions. Yeah. So what I intend to do, I do. And if we're talking about a more skilled fighter, hopefully that's in a positive direction. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, you you intend on making a three-point shot and you're able to do it most of the time you you try to do it. Or 30% of the time. It's usually both three-point shooters.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

So I have a qu uh we we ask a lot of the same questions because I'm I'm curious for the answer. So one of the questions I always like to ask, uh we'll put this in a fighting context, and it maps on to perception action. If you were standing if I was standing in front of you, Bandit, and I wouldn't do this, but if I was standing in front of you and I meant to throw a punch at you, my question would be from your perspective, when when did that punch begin?

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Well uh you know first of all, uh I'd I'd uh I'd be pretty intimidated. But uh don't intimidate someone Yeah, you look look like you could probably uh probably pack quite the punch. Uh but uh um but uh yeah I I would say that I would say from my perspective as the person who's being punched, uh the punch would uh sort of begin the moment that I recognized it as such, probably. Um and just like uh objective, not objectively, but I guess from the perspective of the action beginning versus ending, um, I think it's it's probably something that could be defined on multiple levels. So I think uh you could define it uh in terms of the intentionality. Uh so the moment that you started to prepare your body to deliver a you know fist in my face at a specific location uh would be uh one sort of way to define it. But you could also define it on a broader and finer timescale, I think, too. Um so I think it could be defined in a broader timescale in terms of like um if we were in the middle of boxing with each other or uh if we had some sort of altercation that led up to it beforehand, uh, then all of those things are sort of a part of the action in a sense. Uh and then there's also kind of the more fine-grained details that I think are also uh a part of it too. Uh like it wouldn't probably be considered a punch until uh either it's uh the action was completed and you missed me or you hit me, uh, then it would probably be considered a punch at that point. Uh so there's that kind of fine-grained uh type of detail to it too. So I think it I think it could be considered a punch in in all of those respects, uh depending on what you uh were were kind of uh the perspective you had on.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

No, I like that. And and I I think you're just you know reasserting that context is very, very important. If we were standing around at the bar having a beer, there'd be no reason for me to punch you. But if we'd agreed to come to the gym and you were a boxer and we're playing around sparring, then you would be more sensitive and you know tuned into what I may actually be doing. The reason I asked that is because I asked my athletes a long time a lot of that. And I usually get the well, they move their shoulders, they twitch of the shoulder, which which may be correct. I could very well be, I'm sure that's part of it. What I try to then tell my athletes is the more punches we get thrown at us, we will regardless of when we we pick this arbitrary starting point, we'll push that further back and we will be able to perceive that earlier and earlier. And I believe that's probably what's underpinning a lot of the skilled action that we see in high-level performance. They're able to uh attune to and recognize and perceive the action earlier. Not necessarily acting upon earlier, but there's they're they're they're there's almost like they're uh broadening that temporal scale of the the affordance, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, I I definitely think that's true. And um uh it is the case that you tend to become um quicker at recognizing things as you get better at it, and then you also uh get better at differentiating things uh as well. Like so that's uh um probably being able to tell a difference between somebody uh preparing to punch you versus preparing to kick you is something you can probably recognize like sooner and sooner in the in the action uh as you develop those skills, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

No, and I think this is because we see a lot in our sport. Uh, even I was watching one of the greatest players in the world the other day, he had these specs on and he's chasing numbers around the screen and some kind of idea that he's gonna make himself quicker, more reactive, more reflexive. I don't think that holds up well to scrutiny because it's a completely different context. But this is what we're kind of imploring our athletes to do, that never really strip the context away. We have lots of safety issues now we need to worry about, so we can't just be practicing by punching each other in the face, but we get pretty close to it. And again, it's just kind of stand true to this idea that we never we never rip it apart. We're always trying to do the thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

So I think we should represent it as possible.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Yes. It's represented as possible.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, and some of um some of my own research speaks to that. So I've um done research on affordances that uh look at the difference between people perceiving the affordances for an object versus perceiving just like relevant properties of it. Uh so I did a study where people had to um remember like the length of a stick that they held, uh, and then they also had to remember how high they could reach with it. Uh so like the the length of the stick and also how high they could reach with it are are very much correlated with each other. Uh but if I gave them feedback on how high they could reach with it, it didn't make them better at estimating how long the stick was, and vice versa, which uh is very surprising because you would think that they'd be directly related to each other. Uh but because you're not learning about it in specifically the affordance context of reachability, uh then it doesn't seem to translate from your perception of the length of the object. So even though you get better at perceiving how long something is, uh, it doesn't necessarily make you better at uh using it to do stuff uh that involve length. So uh that would suggest that um some of those abstracted types of training regimens might not transfer as well to the real life context.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Actually, maps on well, I I've been a long-playing golfer, and when I started playing golf, they weren't around, but you have these scanners now, all the pins or golf pins have some kind of reflector. So a lot of the golfers have these uh like binocular things and it'll tell them exact yardage. That's never helped me. When you tell me yardage, it doesn't help me. I'm I'm always going by the distance I perceive and how which club I need to hit and how hard I need to hit it.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Yeah, that would make sense because you're you're not perceiving it in terms of just raw distance, but uh instead perceiving it in terms of uh the uh the uh hittability of the ball or the you know um like how how far you can hit it rather than how far it's going per se. Uh so uh I think those are probably things that don't translate to each other at all that all that well. Um and we used to do a lot of um uh for baseball, a lot of drills where we would try to like estimate the length from where we stand in the batter's box to the end of the plate to try to make sure that we have plate coverage. Uh and uh that is also probably not nearly as effective as just throwing the ball like so that it's outside versus inside, uh, and getting used to you know whether or not you can put the bat on it in those different places, because uh then you're actually you're actually practicing the action uh in uh you're actually naturalizing a f in affordance rather than just estimating like raw distances or or kind of geometric dimensions. So yeah, I would imagine those are I I imagine affordance-based training is always better than like you know external geometric property training.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Okay, here's where I'm starting to get maybe uh a little bit out there. I I mentioned to Adam the other day. So uh I think when I'm talking to my students or people in this kind of field, they're stupid into ecological dynamics for coaching, we think about these affordances as being these these relationships or things. I'm fascinated by affordances. But these affordances seem almost limitless. I mean, I'm sitting here, there's there's there's countless affordances. And I was asking Adam the other day perhaps the world just affords us rather than being affordances out there. But I don't know if that makes any sense. So how would you define affordances? Um because I know there's still a relatively robust debate within ecological psychology, right? Of what they actually are. And so Dr. Brown, your best um layman's uh kind of description of affordances and affordances-based control.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Yeah, well, I I um yeah, you're right, affordances uh are debated quite a bit. Some of that some of that has to do with the fact that they've been taken out of context in um a lot of fields, like the term is used in a lot of um situations that it wasn't necessarily supposed to be used in. But then also within ecological psychology, there's debates about what affordances are. Um I I define affordances as just opportunities for an action for action uh that depend on the fit between the organism and the environment. So the relationship between the organism and the environments uh would be the simplest, uh, I would say, definition of it. But then um it gets, you know, you you hit on a really interesting point about them, uh, which is um like whether or not they're probabilistic, for instance. Like uh do you perceive uh when you're perceiving the affordance for whether or not you could reach an object, uh, is that something that uh is uh varies from trial to trial based on error, or is it very on trial to trial based on the fact that we're inherently variable within the way that we perceive affordances and do so probabilistically, that is uh something uh that people debate uh within ecological psychology, for instance. Um what what you suggested is something that I've been thinking about recently. Uh so uh there's um I can't remember exactly what it's called, uh, but basically if you have um some sort of um some sort of thing that's traveling through a phase space, uh so uh like um basically anything that can move within an area of space, uh like if you have an unlimited amount of time, then that moving object, whether it's a particle or whether it's a person or uh whether it's anything that can move from one area to another, uh it'll explore like the whole phase space if you give it enough time. Uh so I've wondered whether or not that applies to affordances at like a population level. Like, is it the fact that humans actualize every possible affordance like within our species within if we have enough time to do so? Uh and uh also um does every individual human actualize every possible affordance that they personally have but within their lifetime? Uh those are those are all questions that I've I've kind of uh been wondering wondering about too. Uh and uh it starts to get uh pretty complicated the more you think about.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

It almost sounds it almost sounds uh like does the affordance exist if we don't perceive it? So within my office, there's couches and things to write on. Like I know what's in here, it's my office, but if someone else were to kind of come in here blindfolded, sit down or stare into the corner and not know what's in here, do those affordances still exist if they don't know about them? Does a tree fall on woods if no one's around to hear a sound? Is that sort of part of what you're saying as well? You know, does a person interact with all these things if we give them enough time and let them explore the space? Uh those things were there. They didn't know about them and eventually maybe came upon them later. Were they there or were they not there before they came upon them?

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Can I before you jump in, Brandon? Can I not necessarily want to strike it? Before we um let's keep me and you right just now. If we were getting into a fight, uh is the affordance of you of hitability for you uh because per I'm assuming you haven't done martial arts or whatnot, and we're probably at different experience levels. Um, but I would perceive more affordances of hitability standing in front of you than you would with me. Does that mean the affordances of of hitting me is is is not there or hasn't been discovered, or is it something you haven't tuned into? Does the question make sense? I think it's I'm I'm trying to map it onto somewhat on a plane where we're already possessing.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Oh like that like that.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

No, that's for you. He's I asked you about does it exist in the world, the sinner, the right of whatever it is. Does it exist for you to see that to see that God is hitable? Uh he'll obviously see you being hit maybe more hitable with all his experience, but you are you afforded to that to those same things?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yeah, well, uh I I think that most ecological psychologists would say that an affordance exists regardless of whether or not it's perceived. Uh but um that gets complicated when you start talking about real-world affordances. So uh like um for instance, uh like I could like the affordance of standing on like uh a chair that has wheels on it might exist for me. Uh but uh it's also something that I might not do. Uh like because I feel like uncomfortable with it because I think I'm gonna fall. Uh or there's a really good chance that I wouldn't actually be able to actualize the affordance. Uh so does that mean the affordance never existed? Does it mean that the affordance only exists after I have practiced doing it enough to where I can actually stand on the chair and not fall off of it? Uh so it's uh it gets complicated, I think, when you're talking about like individual affordances. So it's also the case that affordances are nested within other affordances. So like in order to walk through my door, uh I have to uh perceive the affordance of walking walkability to the door and actually perform that first. Uh so that anything within that chain of actions could make it so that uh the door no longer affords passage for me, like maybe I fall over while I get up, or uh maybe my legs are asleep or something like that. So uh it all becomes uh something that can change really quickly over time, I think, too.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

So so my last question on affordances would be, and I'm maybe just throwing my own words in here, and I so I'll try and explain, is there a resolution to affordances? When I think about, say, parkour athletes, they're very, very sensitive to the jumpability and the landability of of objects and in their surfaces and whatnot. Where I might have a capability to jump like that, but I wouldn't have any kind of control, I'd probably kill myself rather quickly. So does the question make sense? Is there kind of a resolution in that to the affordances?

SPEAKER_00 45:19

So um your question is uh like because you can do part of the action but not uh perform like the action in context necessarily, does that mean that it's something that is an affordance that's available to you versus not?

SPEAKER_02 45:34

So here's maybe if I can make it a bit more simpler, the example I use with some of the students. So if we have a gap, there's a gap here that that's that's clearly jumpable. And then there might be a gap that's clearly unjumpable. As that gap closes and gets to that that line of might be jumpable, might not be jumpable, would a more experienced jumper would that line be finer? Would there be a higher resolution to it, that that jumpable and unjumpable line? Whereas maybe a novice jumper there'd be this kind of blurry kind of uncertainty between the jumpable and unjumpable. Does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_00 46:06

Yeah, that definitely makes sense, yeah. Uh and it's a it's a really interesting question. Um so uh it is the case that most affordance boundaries are are really fuzzy, like uh where you know you are you have like a threshold for where you feel like you can do something versus can't do it, uh, but it sort of um changes from trial to trial or moment to moment, uh both perceptually and in performing the action uh itself. Uh so uh I think that um uh it is the case that uh you as a more experienced athlete would for most tasks probably have a smaller boundary area, like smaller variability around that boundary uh for um what you can and cannot do. Uh but uh it also could be more fuzzy in other situations if you had uh more um like more experience. Not in that context, I don't think. Like I think with jump jumpability, like you probably get more accurate be at being able to perceive where you could actually jump. But um I imagine there might be tasks where you actually like perceive a fuzzier boundary if you're actually um better at the task. I can't think of an example of it, but it feels like that could be possible if you if you know what I mean. Like I'm not I can't think of an example where a fuzzier affordance boundary would be something that is related to better expertise. Uh but um I I suppose I I don't feel comfortable saying that it's like always the case that your affordance boundary becomes less variable uh as you gain more expertise. That was a really convoluted answer.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

But I think we see this in fighting Rory where maybe a fighter starts, they almost kind of freeze up because we we we we we think the affordance is there and they're more than capable of throwing punches and kicks, but they just they're clearly not either perceiving that for affordance or there's a fuzziness there that it's not worth not worth the risk.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Almost as as though it might be just very simply related to confidence, you know, uh you were just doing this thing five seconds ago and now you're not doing it anymore. Like what happened in your brain, what happened in your thought process that all of a sudden made your ability to see that disappear. And I wonder sometimes, especially in fighting, well, I guess even in any athletics, you see a quarterback who against us try to throw a ballpool leave a just when that picture can't throw it to the the catcher can't throw it back to the pitcher, you know, there's is is not there might just be something else. I'm certainly not smart enough to say what that thing is, but there certainly could just be something else that gets in the way of that. Well, yeah, we see it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

And and confidence definitely matters, and it's sort of a it's sort of a weird thing, like it's related to performance. Like the better you perform, generally the more confident you are. But uh it it isn't always like it can be affected by weird things. Um one of my friends did a study where they I can't remember exactly what the task was, but they basically um measured the like exploratory behavior of their head for some sort of visual task, and the way that they explored so with their head was related to how confident they felt, but it wasn't related to their performance per se. Uh so there's um some weird things that can happen with confidence that aren't necessarily like specifically related to um performance. Uh and uh I imagine there's probably a lot of other like social and emotional factors that can play a role too in it.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Well, we certainly see that in in fighting because this is a challenge for both of us and most coaches. How do we take the context of the the relatively safe and predictable context uh context of the gym and the training environment and and take athletes into a cage where people are seriously trying to hurt them? That's a big contextual jump.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Yeah, that's that's that's gotta be hard to uh uh to uh you know simulate, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

So if you care about people, yes, if you care about your students, it is hard to simulate, but we have certainly seen enough of it to be simulated. Imagine.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Rory, before I've got uh mindful of your time here, Doc, um, but I have a couple of questions. I have a friend I was speaking with last night, and uh I promised him I'd ask him these questions. But uh Rory, do you have any questions?

SPEAKER_01 49:57

No, I've been drawing, I'm joining us, so please ask why. I'm learning a lot.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Okay, the grand finale is going to be asking about memory. And uh I wish I had all day because I the idea that you were talking about on the last podcast that we might be expanding through time and space and everything now is just mind-blown to me, and I have no idea what to do with it. But um so the the the the question and I'm I'm trying not to uh straw man, I'm trying to give it a fair shape. So when we're talking about uh experience, we get better at we get better at something as we do, right? If we continue to engage in a task, we'll generally get better at the thing that we're doing. And my friend Sam, that has to be implying storage. And I would say, well it's not easy for me to articulate why it doesn't necessarily imply storage, like from a dynamical systems um perspective, but does it necessarily imply apply storage? So when we have a experience and then we add on to that experience and we continue to add on to these experiences, I think it it it seems intuitive that we are building on some kind of stored memory. I don't think you agree with that, and I'm hoping you can give a better answer than I tried to last night.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Yeah, this is um this is my um like uh central research issue uh is affordance memory. Uh so that's what I started studying with Jeff, uh, and the whole impetus for that was basically at a bar one night after a conference, I was talking to him about whether or not there could be an ecological psychology explanation of memory and if we could like test memory in the lab with um uh affordance-based tasks. And since then I've been like on uh a mission uh to try to come up with like a full-blown uh ecological memory theory. Uh I would say that I'm not there yet, uh, but uh I have some um developments within the theory, and basically what I realized is that it all sort of hinges on our definition of time. Uh so I think that within mainstream psychology, uh there are some really um and within ecological psychology too, but uh there are some really um, I'd say, uncritical explanations uh of what the difference between perception and memory are. Uh it's something that we intuitively understand. So, like, well, you know, perception is something we're experiencing right now, memory is something that we experienced in the past. Uh, but uh the actual cutoff between those two things doesn't really make any physical sense per se. Uh so uh if that's the case, then we almost experience nothing perceptually because the current moment passes so quickly from a relativistic standpoint uh that there almost isn't anything that we're ever perceiving uh if we're defining perception as something that's happening now. Uh so um really that distinction between perception and memory doesn't have any any kind of physical um uh grounding to it, really. It's just uh sort of based on how we experience uh memory versus perception and kind of our just uh like um like our almost intuitive understanding of what it is more so than what it actually is. Uh so uh my points uh throughout my career has uh mostly been that we shouldn't explain perception and memory in this way, uh, that we should instead define what we perceive in terms of uh the amount of time that it takes to actualize affordances. Uh, because uh with affordances, it's like it's almost like we're perceiving the future when we perceive an affordance. Uh we're perceiving potential futures, so they're not things that we necessarily perform and do. Uh, but we are seeing uh, you know, whether or not we can pass through a doorway or step on a step or jump over a gap or something like that before it happens. Uh so I I think probably a better description of what's happening now uh is a description of our experience of affordances, uh, because that is basically everything that we feel like we can do at the moment. Uh and that is really, I think, a more accurate description of what a perceptual experience is. Uh, it's more so us perceiving not what's happening in the moment, but potentially happening uh within you know different time frames. Uh how long that can be is something that I don't know the answer to. You know, you can perceive affordances on really small timescales, like whether or not you can reach an object. You can also perceive them on really large timescales, like whether or not uh you're going to graduate from your program four years from now, uh, for instance. Uh so uh it gets kind of fuzzy in terms of uh what you'd actually define as being now uh in that way. Uh but I do think that's a better way of defining what's happening now. But everything that's happened in the past to us uh doesn't just disappear, uh, even though uh we've moved into the future both spatially and temporally away from it. Uh so the idea that we lose it somehow, I also think I think is based more so on like our intuitive feelings about it than it is on any like actual science or research around it, too. Uh it feels like it's no longer with us because we can no longer interact with it. Uh and I think that defining memory as being experiences that we can no longer affect in the future uh is a better definition of memory. Uh so uh in that sense, uh it's not that like something is gone and you have to take it with you through time, like and store it in a storage case, uh, but uh instead you're just experiencing events that you can no longer affect. So they I think have a different character. Uh, and I think that the same way that the events themselves dissipate over time, uh, your experience of them can kind of dissipate over time as well. Uh so it doesn't necessarily require taking anything uh through time with you. Uh it just has to do with real time kind of always moving into the future and you leaving behind these events that you can no longer affect type of a thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Yeah, we got really early there. I'm glad we're getting here. Uh I heard us I heard a song a few weeks ago, my son was playing. I hadn't heard it for 30 years. It was a rap song, an old Ice T rap song. And I was vibing with it almost as it went, I was you know, picking up with the words, the beats, and everything. I am skeptical and reluctant to think that there's there's a MP3 file in my head. Uh could you I know it's a bit controversial too from what I've been reading, but this idea maybe are we just kind of recreating and resonating with the kind of music as it's playing? Uh do you have anything to say on that?

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Yeah, I think um that has to do with the the fact that uh events can span different different periods of time. So uh you could describe your experience in that situation as being one where you uh stored the memory of that song for the last, you know, 30 years or whatever, 20 years or whatever it's been, uh, and that it got retrieved when you experienced it again, uh, you know, the other day. That's one way that you could uh describe it. Uh you could also describe it as uh, you know, this happening 20 or 30 years ago and you never having forgotten it, uh, but it just not being something that's relevant for your current intentions. Uh so uh your experience of it again is just a kind of like a continuation of that event that took place a long time ago, uh, but not necessarily a storage of it and taking it uh, you know, with you through time, uh, but instead those things in the past continuously existing through time and you having access to them, uh, just not always needing to have access to it. Um it's really in some ways not a big difference between the two theories. I think once again, it's just the place that's being emphasized. Like with ecological psychology, it's all about you know, organisms in the environment. Uh so uh it's instead of carrying that through time, it's like it's just an expanded period of time where you're experiencing this longer event. Uh, but uh in cognitive theory, it's more so just a focus on how is it, where is it that you're storing that event uh to uh actually have with you now. And so I think that that question just becomes less relevant from an ecological perspective uh because we're not assuming that things are being stored and carried through time necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

I like that. And I uh uh the and the charge is is fitting, right? Why does any of this matter to us as MMA coaches? We're teaching each other and our people are coming in our space to learn how to punch and kick each other. But I think it does I'm I'm just deeply curious about it, but I I I I believe that because we have these really these crystallized ideas of of memory and storage and programming and whatnot, it it does affect the way we can kind of get our athletes to buy into this. So, yes, I'm not gonna have philosophical discussions with my athletes about the role of memory or whatnot, because one, I'm not qualified and it would go it goes over my head, let alone theirs. Uh, but there are reasons why we're we're curious about these ideas because they underpin a lot of the assumptions that martial artists and coaches bring with them into the room.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

I I completely agree. And um I think uh another point I would make too that's uh within the the contest of the context of athletics is that um I think uh ecological psychologists more so than than information processing theorists. Uh they uh think about some like developments and memory as being not the same thing necessarily. Uh so like um developments of your perception action system is something that involves attunement and calibration. So it's like you get better at differentiating perceptual information, that's attunements, uh, and uh you get better at like coordinating your action with your perception, and that's um uh that is um uh the uh um calibration that you kind of uh experience through time. Uh and that is like something that changes from moment to moment and day to day and hour to hour. Uh like um, for instance, uh if you've been training to be a baseball player and you haven't played golf in a long time, uh like you might remember how to swing a golf club, like you could explain it, for instance, but your more recent training on baseball might interfere with your golf swing, like when you're actually golfing. Uh so in that case, there's even sort of like a disconnect between your developments of your perceptual system and say your uh kind of experience of events that have happened to you throughout time. Uh and some I think those things aren't separable things. So I think that uh the development is almost like more reliable in a sense. It's something that is more tangible kind of that happens over time. Uh and I think the memory is something that's a little bit messier, like where uh it can be affected even by stuff that's happening in the moment right now. Like you can uh there's something called the misinformation effect where you can like um bias someone to remember something that they experience differently by asking a question uh in a different way. Uh and uh I think that's uh in that sense, memory is like a little bit more fungible, like a little bit more uh, you know, kind of fuzzy and uh you know affected by some of the ways that we just kind of articulate what we've experienced. Uh but I think that the development of the perception action system is something that's not as affected by stuff like that. Uh and I think that in information processing theory, they think it is more affected by by stuff like that. So I think that's another kind of relevant distinction.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

And the second the second little conversation we go into is say, okay, we we're gonna remember this conversation. What exactly are we remembering about it? What is the resolution to that? Well, I mean that would be my question. I think we have this idea that this that we we are storing these almost images in our head. Or we playing these video loops or whatever, and that doesn't appear to be the case at all at all. When you said that well, maybe when we recall, I think this has been shown through a lot of you know uh legal stuff, witnesses not when we're recalling a memory, it might be very, very different from what actually happened. Even though we we even though we might believe that. So um that would be a question. Is there a resolution to these memories? Or remembering? Are we remembering some kind of structure? Is there invariants that are popping up today through this conversation that were more you know permanent to whatever I'm recalling?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

Yeah, um I think that I think that's um I would describe like an organism's whole life as like a single event, and then there's these other sub-events that happen within it. Uh, and I think that's uh you're always in real time trying to just coordinate your perception and action with each other in in an intentional but in effective way. Uh so I think that because of that, like the development of your perception-action system is something that can be relatively stable in a lot of ways. And uh, even traditional psychologists have shown that your muscle memory is way more accurate than like your memory for events that have taken place in your life. Uh but I think that, you know, actually explicitly remembering events that have happened is something uh that is also influenced by what you're doing right now. Uh and so for that reason, uh it can, even though it's still an extension of every event that's happened in your life in a sense, uh, you might think about one aspect of it, you know, because you're reminded of uh, you know, the um like one aspect of the conversation we've had and not another aspect. And another time you might be reminded of some other aspect of the conversation. So it's something I think that always interfaces with what you're currently doing. Uh and uh that is something that is more stable with like the actual performance that you have than it is you describing the memories that you have instead.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

I think this is my final one, and it's a uh tip of the cap to Adam. So we hear a lot about and what we read is that perception and action are two sides of the same coin, they're inseparable. Uh Adam always uses the idea of if you had an equation, you could swap the P from the A. Would that be a statement you might agree with?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Yeah, I definitely think that that's true. Um, I think that uh perception and action are inseparable uh from each other. Um I think that the way that I think they're causally related, but it's uh circular causality, uh so kind of similar to what he said. It's not like perception happens first and um action happens second. So that is uh traditionally how psychologists have thought about it. I it's usually referred to as like the reflex arc, uh like that you have a stimulus and then a response uh to that stimulus. Uh but uh I I don't think it works that way. I think sometimes uh the uh the causality is uh initiated by one or the other, depending on how you define it, but they're always both causally involved. So uh I think that's um I would agree with that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

And very last one for me anyway, is is is it implied that when we talk about action, it's always some kind of movement? I mean, I I think about these these street performers that are with the human statues, right? I think there's a tremendous amount of perception and action going on there, just to say still. First of all, am I am I off base there or would you agree? Or is action does action have a different um understanding in in sport movement? Of course it does in sport movement. Would you consider that would you consider perception action processes to be again continuous uh during a uh becoming a street performing statute?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Yeah, yeah, I I think so. I I think um uh in that case too, there's uh a ton of muscle groups that would be activated to keep them, like to keep their posture uh as well. So it is uh sort of um, I imagine, a very complex muscular um task that's you accomplish. Uh and you could make that argument that um we're even you know perceiving and acting when we sleep, because we're uh continuing to do things like breathe or you know roll around in beds, which are all um perception-action activities that even though we're not conscious, uh our body is still performing. Uh so I think that's um I think it's something that never ends or or begins uh in a sense. Um uh but uh uh it can, yeah. Pretty much anything that's an organism does, I think you could describe as an action, even if that's sleeping.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

And going further down the scale, I keep saying the last question, further down the scale, would the uh neuronal activity, uh the activity of the brain, while we're either thinking or pondering or remembering or planning, could that be characterized as an action, or we wouldn't go that far?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

I would definitely say that it is. Uh and um I think um this uh gets to an important point too that um even ecological psychologists struggle with. Uh and uh I I always push back against the idea that the brain and the nervous system don't matter. Uh like uh I feel like sometimes we and sometimes ecological psychologists actually argue this, but uh uh they'll suggest that like our you know central nervous system is not necessarily an important part uh of the perception action process per se, or that it it serves like a uh perfunctory role uh in it, you know. Uh and um I don't I don't think that's true at all. Like I think that uh the um actions itself can be reduced to an infinite number of scales. So like even pretty much every behavioral measurement you do has like the signature of uh either a power law or fractality, which those very much point to self-organized systems, and those are are systems that have um like scaling that takes place like from the smallest scales all the way up to the largest scales. Uh so that would suggest that any behavior that you engage in uh involves uh every single element of your movement system. Uh so I I would argue the activity of your neurons, uh, I would argue the uh the um contractions of your muscles, so all of those fine. Scales types of things that allow you to move, uh, that those are all important parts of the action process, and and you can describe them at their own level as individual actions to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

See that that's an answer I've been waiting for for the longest time. I think, and I don't want to misquote him. I think Jeff talks about perception being a process over time. So I was thinking, okay, so is is planning and maybe even remembering if that's associated with neural activity, is that also an action? Then that makes sense. So perception and action then indeed is continuous in over time. Yeah, definitely. That that's some I just had a I've been waiting for that answer. I hope it's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

Yeah, absolutely. And uh, I mean, uh those milliseconds or even less types of uh actions that your body performs are sometimes the difference between life and death. So uh I think they're a really you know necessary element of the uh of the process. And some there's some some of my colleagues that's um like Louis Fabella, for instance, um uh do like uh neuroscience research that's more ecologically uh sort of oriented, and uh they they make similar arguments about uh the the way the brain works and how it's very much a part of your um perceptual system and in a meaningful way on on just a smaller time scale.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

I just gave the ecological brain to Sam, the guy I was talking about last night. Uh love uh Louis, love listening to Louis too. Brandon, I'm extremely uh mindful and uh appreciate it for your time. Rory, have you any outros?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

No. No, I want to be by following Dr. Randon's time as well. My question, we could we could have him back if he enjoyed himself, we can ask him all kinds of other cool things, or Adam can, and then I'll hold my possibly longer answered question for the future. I'll give him a I'll give him time to ponder it just for the next time he comes back. How do I dissuade someone of their belief that all these things that we discuss that we don't necessarily believe in perception action direct, we obviously that there are models and maps? Like I've been doing some reading, obviously Scotty's been doing more of my brother's embody cognition, and like I mean, he's just he's a nerd. God, he's a nerd, it's a social, it's annoying to me to be the other brother. But like, how do I how do I share with someone? Like, you have a male, you have a doctorate, I I'm just reading a couple books. There are people who don't do any work to sort of understand, they just do what they do because that's what they've been taught, they believe what they believe for reasons. How would one begin to even explain to someone that there is a better model of of how we we we perceive and act in the world, in the environment, and that there are better ways to mold and shape that environment to get more skilled and especially as coaches, more skilled at the task we're trying to get skilled at? Where does one like me begin when I believe that I believe that this is the better way? I believe you believe it's a better way. You can put a lot of schooling into it to believe it's the better way to learn. How do I help someone? Where do I get someone started uh so that they see for themselves or at least are willing to maybe hear something that'll take them down that path? If that's too long, then then put type that one out, come back to it, maybe work on a PhD with Scotty after gets his masters, and uh we'll have you back on if that's a long answer. But that's what I would, at the end of all this, is having someone with with your knowledge, and and Scotty's a great coach, and I believe I'm a pretty good coach in trying to help other coaches if I believe that this is a better way, you know, and trying to help other coaches. Uh I don't necessarily I don't really always get through to people.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

Yeah, uh well, I'll I'll give you a longer answer next time we uh we uh uh talk to each other for sure, but it's uh um but it's uh I would say showing people for sure is the best way to do it. So so um anytime you can kind of uh you know show them that it's uh that it's uh for instance, um like uh one of the things that I use as an example of of ecological psychology a lot is the the outfielder problem, like how difficult it's been to explain how outfielders catch fly balls and that there's all these different you know pieces of instruction on it, but nobody can really describe like how they do it. Uh and um like you can just throw a ball in the air and tell them to run so that the ball doesn't have any curvature on it, uh, and they'll be at the spot where the ball is. So because basically what people are doing is just zeroing out the optical acceleration of the ball, which gives it like a curved trajectory. Uh so as long as you're running so that it's it doesn't have that curved trajectory, you'll end up where the ball is. Uh so you can kind of use that as a way to demonstrate that you're not using some sort of motor program to know where the ball is going to be. You're just continuously kind of moving in a way that's uh reliably gives you the location of the dropping point of the ball.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

I'll start with that. I'd love to have you back on. You know, I when I started the podcast about five years ago, I was getting as many of the academics and scientists as come on, and then when I relaunched it with Lori's brother, Adam, we're just more general talking coachy stuff, but I did have a few requests uh to get the eggheads back on. So we're trying to eggheads. Thank you very much, Dr. Brandon. Thank you, Dr. Brandon.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

Yeah, anytime, anytime. It was uh it was great to meet y'all, and uh, I'm uh excited to talk to you again.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:43

I keep saying uh so you're teaching at Whitewater, is it uh under undergrad? Is it masters? What what are you teaching there exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

It's uh it's all undergraduate students, yeah. And I'm uh teaching I just taught perception today, actually. And so that that question you asked me a second ago, Rory, made me think about the fact that I struggle to teach my students about ecological psychology because most of the class we talk about you know traditional approaches. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

Well, uh that's it for me because I've had a hundred questions today. Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. We are going to be uploading this on YouTube and audio. Hope you have no issues with that. Absolutely. And then just there's several podcasts exploring this topic at the moment. So um if any of my fellow podcasters perhaps wanted to reach out to you, um, would that be okay? And if so, perhaps I can put your email in the in in the show notes with your permission. Otherwise, they can get in touch with me and I can get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

Yeah, absolutely. That'd be that'd be great. I'm always happy to talk about uh this stuff. And and yeah, let me uh let me know when the podcast is is up and um uh I'll uh definitely uh share it to them.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

All right. Thank you, Brandon. Really appreciate it. Had a lot of fun. You filled in a lot of blanks for me. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:47

Yeah, me too, thank you all, and uh good to see you and take care.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Bye.