Emergent Cognition: Rethinking the Role of Thinking & Memory in Sports and the Neuroscience of Skill

If our brain is NOT a supercomputer that analyzes our environment, predicts the future, and programs actions, then what exactly is its role in skillful behavior? What role does cognition (e.g., understanding of concepts and tactics, being able to explain decisions, and memory of past events) play in the Ecological Dynamics conceptualization of the control of action? How can we apply this to sports coaching and skill instruction? For example, what is the best way for a team to utilize "advance" information about an opponent? How can we best prepare police officers to describe their use-of-force decision after an incident? How can questioning and after-action reviews support the development of adaptable performers?

In this book, Rob Gray (best-selling and award-winning author of "How We Learn to Move" and "Learning to Be an Ecological Coach") presents the concept of Emergent Cognition - the idea that thinking, understanding, decision-making, and motivation emerge from (i.e., come out of) acting rather than being something that happens before it. He explores JJ Gibson's proposal that the human brain resonates to the dynamic, information-movement relationships we create with our environment, rather than operating on impoverished cues we pull from it. Implications of this radical reconceptualization of neuroscience for how we train neurodivergent athletes, how we can help an athlete recover from concussion/TBI, and the potential benefits of brain stimulation, neurofeedback, and "brain training" are also discussed.

Find Ecological Dynamics theory appealing and having some success with the associated Constraints Led Approach (CLA) to coaching, but feel something is still missing? Time to think again!