Bruce Abernethy */**
(*) Institute of Human Performance, University of Hong Kong, China
(**) School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland, Australia
Citation
Abernethy, B. (2009). Some brickbats and bouquets for ecological approaches to cognition in Sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 40(1), 136-143.
Abstract
The articles by Brett Fajen, Michael Riley and Michael Turvey, Kenneth Hammond and Robert Bateman, Ruy Jornada Krebs, and Gerhard Kaminski on different ecological approaches to sport cognition present a unique com- pilation of thought-provoking essays that should be of both interest and chal- lenge to all sport psychologists. Each article presents a position on the study of the psychology of sport (and other facets of skilled human movement) that is directly influenced by one of the giants of ecological approaches – James J. Gibson (in the case of Fajen et al.), Egon Brunswik (in the case of Hammond & Bateman), Urie Bronfenbrenner (in the case of Krebs), and Roger G. Barker (in the case of Kaminski). In this commentary I make some necessar- ily brief observations on the strengths and issues associated with these eco- logical approaches, treated first individually and then collectively. My per- spective in examining the papers is that of someone with a particular interest in skill learning and expert performance. My interest in ecological psychol- ogy is largely from the context of a researcher intrigued by the contribution that ecological psychology, in its various forms, might make to understanding movement expertise (e.g., Abernethy, Burgess-Limerick & Parks, 1994) and as an interested observer of the paradigmatic tussles between cognitive psy- chology and ecological psychology for dominance of motor control and learning research (Abernethy & Sparrow, 1992).
Keywords: