Perceptual cognitive expertise
An athlete’s ability to rapidly and accurately pick up relevant information from the environment and then use that information to make effective decisions. It’s the blend of what you notice, how you interpret it, and how quickly you act on it.
Research
Skilled performers utilise critical information from the environment and integrate it with pre-existing knowledge in order to make the most appropriate action under severe temporal pressure.
For example, in a soccer penalty kick, the goalkeeper must use prior knowledge of situational probabilities, contextual information from the current game situation and penalty taker, as well as use an efficient visual search strategy to pick up on postural cues as they develop across the action, in order to anticipate the ball direction and intercept successfully.
Identifying the underlying mechanisms of expert performance, as well as the practice activities that develop expert memory and domain specific knowledge ensure a systematic and evidence-based approach to expediate acquisition of superior perceptual-cognitive skills.
