The (Sport) Performer-Environment System as Journal of Expertise 2018. Vol. 1(3) the Base Unit in Explanations of Expert © 2018. The authors license this article Performance under the terms of the Creative Commons Duarte Araújo1 and Keith Davids2 Attribution 3.0 License. 1 2 ISSN 2573-2773 CIPER, Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon; Center for Sports Engineering Research, Sheffield Hallam University

Correspondence: Duarte Araújo, [email protected] (Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, Cruz Quebrada, Portugal)

Abstract In this article we propose that expertise can be best explained as the interaction of the varying constraints/characteristics of the environment and of the individual, framed by the ecological dynamics approach. This rationale of expert performance is contrasted with the typical way that science has approached the study of expertise: i.e., by looking for constraints, located in the individual, either nurture- or nature-based, and related to high performance levels. In ecological dynamics, the base unit of analysis for understanding expertise is the individual-environment system. Illustrating this perspective with Bob Beamon’s 8.90 m long jump, whose 1968 world-record jump was substantially longer than any previous, we argue that expert performers should not be seen as an agglomeration of genes, traits, or mental dispositions and capacities. Rather, expert performance can be captured by the dynamically- varying, functional relationship between the constraints imposed by the environment and the resources of each individual performer.

Keywords sport, expertise, affordance, ecological, dynamic, self-organization

Introduction

Six seconds was all it took for Bob Beamon to leap by random chance? Was it due to the stadium’s fast into history. He ran 19 strides down the runway, runway, or to competitive pressures? jumped, and landed 8.90 m later. In 1968 in We tend to respond affirmatively to all these Mexico City's University Olympic Stadium, Bob questions, declaring that no single factor located Beamon broke the world record for the farthest solely in the performer or environment can long jump. It remains, arguably, the greatest explain expert performance. As argued individual feat of the modern Olympics. For elsewhere (e.g., Araújo & Davids, 2011), expertise researchers, questions arise immediately: expertise and expert performance cannot be How can we explain such expert performance? acquired or possessed by individuals (or be Was it due to genetics? Was it because of his located in an environment). Like a rainbow, physical characteristics/abilities. Or was it which does not exist in individual drops of deliberate practice scheduling? Did Mexico City's water, or in an observer’s visual system, or in altitude cause it? Or was it the wind? Did it happen the light rays from the sun, but in the interaction

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Araújo and Davids (2018) Expert Performance and the Performer-Environment System of these components, expertise and expert athletes who can reproducibly match a given performance exist in the coupling of an level of performance” (p.119), we argue that individual and an environment. That is, Beamon’s jump is particularly well suited to expertise emerges from the specific interactions exemplify expert performance precisely because of system components. In this paper we present of its exceptionality. This analysis of expert an ecological (transactional) dynamics rationale performance defies the explanatory power of of expert performance (e.g., Davids, Araújo, most existing theories on expert performance. Seifert, & Orth, 2015), practically illustrated by To emphasize our arguments, we look closely at Bob Beamon’s eminent performance. information on Beamon’s stand-out performance. An ecological dynamics perspective proposes that understanding any individual’s What Was So Exceptional in Beamon’s performance requires an appreciation of the 8.90-m Long Jump? types of behaviors that a performer’s environment affords (Gibson, 1979). In this Bob Beamon caused an abrupt transition in the way, the individual-environment system previously incremental progress that served as a constitutes the base unit of analysis for hallmark for athletics world records (WR) (see understanding expertise in performance contexts Figure 1A.). The first official long jump WR like sports, work, science, education, and the was verified in 1901 and, until Beamon's jump performance arts. Ecological dynamics is in 1968, the most by which an existing long informed partly by a dynamical systems jump WR had been broken was 15 cm. He broke approach to performance, which relies on the existing WR by 55 cm. The long jump mathematical concepts and tools of nonlinear record had been broken or equaled 15 times dynamics to describe and interpret goal-directed between 1901 and 1968. Beamon’s record lasted behaviors (e.g., Turvey & Shaw, 1995). Goal- 23 years, until Mike Powell jumped 8.95 m, in directed behaviors are understood as emergent 1991, the only regular recorded jump longer states produced by self-organizing tendencies in than Beamon’s. After Powell, the best jumps of a system (Kelso, 1995). Finally, and contrasting the year ranged between 8.35 m (the same mark with ideas of Ericsson (2007), who is “interested as the 1965 world record that Beamon broke in in developing a science (that) should focus on 1968) and 8.74 m (see Figure 1B).

Figure 1. Official world records of long jump over time (A). Best mark of the year, 1968-1991, and after 1991 world record (B). The red ellipse signals the abrupt transition from previous world records to Beamon’s 8.90 m jump in 1968. Data for A retrieved October 27, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Men%27s_long_jump_world_record_progression; data for B retrieved May 31, 2018, from https://www.iaaf.org/records/all-time-toplists/jumps/long-jump/outdoor/men/senior.

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In the Olympic trial, Bob Beamon (age 22, 8.33 m 1992 to 2003 when he finished his athletic as the best personal mark, with about 5 years of career, the mean value of his annual best deliberate practice of long jump; previously he recorded distances was 8.33 m). played basketball) joined Ralph Boston (age 29, During the qualifying stage Beamon 8.35 m as the best mark, world record co-holder at followed the advice of Ralph Boston to take off the time), Lynn Davies (age 26, former Olympic well short of the board to ensure a clean jump. champion), and Ter-Ovanesyan (age 30, world This advice was key for him to be in the final, record co-holder). The sportswriter Schaap labeled because he missed his two previous qualifying the competition “as a battle among four of the half- attempts. The night before the final, Beamon had dozen greatest long jumpers in history” (Davis, been concerned with personal problems. Shortly 2015). before his departure for Mexico City, he had lost When the competition started, the three his scholarship at Texas El-Paso University for athletes who preceded Beamon missed their first participating, with other African American attempt. Then Beamon jumped 8.90 m. He later students, in a boycott of an athletics meeting said that his last thought (main intention) before against Brigham Young University, a Mormon hitting the board was “Don’t foul.” He also institution whose racial policies disturbed them. mentioned “my mind was blank during the jump. He also was not getting along with his young I was as surprised as anybody at the distance.” wife. “Everything was wrong,” he said. “So I Klaus Beer (age 26) was second (8.19 m), Ralph went into town and had a shot of tequila. Man, Boston third (8.16 m), Ter-Ovanesyan fourth did I feel loose” (R. Beamon & M. W. Beamon, (8.12 m), and Lynn Davies ninth (7.94 m). 1999). Clearly, this background information The long jump was the first event of the helps us understand both the cognitions and afternoon program and the temperature was emotions of the performer (self-regulating in an 23ºC. The wind speed on the track measured 2.0 Olympic final), as well as the state of the m/s, the maximum allowed by the rules for environment, in seeking to explain the setting official records. Mexico City is 2,250 m emergence of this performance outcome. above sea level. At that altitude, it has been observed that the air is thinner, providing less air The Base Unit of Analysis for Explaining resistance. Mexico City is also further from the Expertise: The Performer-Environment center of the Earth, and so gravitational forces System are smaller. According to Allain (2012) these In ecological dynamics, expert performance in conditions can provide an advantage of up to 7 sport is revealed by solutions that emerge from cm in every jump, compared to a corresponding self-organizing system components to satisfy the jump under more typical ambient temperatures unique set of constraints interacting upon an and pressure at sea level (see also Ward-Smith, individual performer at that moment in time 1986). Clearly, an explanation solely based on (Araújo et al., 2017) . Due to these continuous these physical environmental factors could not interactions, explanations of expertise, based explain why Beamon’s jump perturbed the solely on either personal (e.g., genes, mental perspective on long jump performance at that structures, or psychological processes) or time, or the magnitude of the difference from environmental constraints (e.g., physical previous world records. All the Olympic long conditions or amount of practice undertaken), jump finalists in 1968, including the two WR co- are fundamentally limited (Davids & Baker, holders at the time, experienced the same 2007; Hambrick, Macnamara, Campitelli, Ullén, environmental conditions, but only Beamon, and & Mosing, 2016). only once in his life, jumped so far. This This is not a trivial point in the commercial perturbation to performance records is not world. With respect to environmental unknown in long jumpers. For example, after constraints, there have been recent warnings of Mike Powell broke the world record in 1991, his the dangers of being overwhelmed by what has best regular jump was 8.70 m in 1993 (from been termed “process industry training”

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(Renshaw et al., in press). Over the past 10 In addition, this explanation does not in any years, different types of process training way endorse the view that hereditary, genetic programs, predicated on the role of constraints are the dominant characteristic in environmental constraints, such as cognitive expert performance. This is important, given that training (including meta-cognitive training with several existing theoretical approaches are video games), brain training, perceptual training, dominated by biases towards organismic attention training (including Quiet Eye training), characteristics. Some theories assume that, for or mind training, has boomed, both as a research expertise development, the environment enriches topic and as a commercial product. Referenced internal traits or dispositions that incur relatively more generally by Harris, Wilson, and Vines permanent changes in an individual’s (2018), “The overall cognitive training (CT) and capabilities (e.g., Gagné, 2015). According to assessment market is currently worth $1.98 this view, the aim of practice is to increase the billion (US) and set to rise to over $8 billion by strength of relevant performance characteristics 2021 (marketsandmarkets.com, 2017).” (p. 2). possessed by an individual. Therefore, research They continued by arguing that “Commercial is needed to understand what has been acquired CT devices are highly appealing for athletes and through practice to change an individual’s coaches due to their ease of use and eye-catching internal state (e.g., Ericsson, Nandogopal, &: marketing claims. The extent to which this Roring, 2009), or what transformations have training transfers to performance in the sporting occurred to internal entities (e.g., Gagné, 2015). arena is, however, unclear.” (p. 1). For example, Ericsson’s theory of exceptional These environmentally-biased, process- performance (e.g., Ericsson et al., 2009) attempts training programs are also supported by to locate constructs that distinguish experts (e.g., commercial interests in the form of popular deliberate practice forms specific mental science books which have not been subject to the representations, long-term working memory rigorous peer-review process that academic structures), especially in the minds of those literature has to undergo. Large swaths of the individuals. These theories seek to differentiate digital and conventional media provide broad skilled individuals from unskilled by identifying support for the sometimes spurious claims of the specific traits exploited during learning. process-training industry. For example, Moreau, Accordingly, expertise, knowledge, and skill are Macnamara, & Hambrick (2018) have pointed viewed as entities possessed by expert out: “Thousands of scientific articles have been individuals. Learning results in the acquisition of published on these topics, which have also an enhanced trait, or the increased sophistication captured the popular imagination through books of mental structures (or knowledge). It has been such as Smarter: The new science of building argued (e.g., Dunwoody, 2006) that brain power (Hurley, 2014), Mindset: The new contemporary behavioral science, with its psychology of success (Dweck, 2006), Grit: The emphasis on acquisition of enriched internal power of passion and perseverance (Duckworth, “traits,” has developed an organismic asymmetry 2016), and Peak: The new science of expertise in its approach to understanding human (Ericsson & Pool, 2017)." (pp. 4-5). They went behavior. In this view the environment is simply on to note, “Some of these areas of research characterized as a backdrop to the demonstration have also spawned lucrative commercial of expertise (not as part of the explanation). This ventures. Brain training is a multibillion-dollar biased theoretical stance has dominated industry, and commercial mindset interventions psychology and sport science and is founded on are used in schools around the world.” (p. 5). separation of the performer from the Their key message resonated with our warnings performance context. It logically detaches against accepting an environment bias; i.e., that content from context—and abilities from process-training programs must be aware of the situations—in which expert performance occurs dangers of “overemphasizing the malleability of (Araújo & Davids, 2011). abilities and other traits” (Moreau, 2018). Therefore, it is not surprising that several

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Expert Performance and the Performer-Environment System Araújo and Davids (2018) research programs based on this type of explained by referring to any single component contemporary theorizing claim to have identified of performance individually. Self-organization constructs within specific individuals that can be identified in a system (here the distinguish experts from non-experts (e.g., based performer-environment system in sport) by on genes, gifts, talents, see Hambrick et al., capturing certain properties (e.g., multi-stability, 2016, for a review). This dualistic view of hysteresis; see Kelso, 1995). These properties do dominant intrinsic characteristics and not exist in the components alone but emerge environmental influences encourages conceptual spontaneously from person-environment divisions. The result is intractable problems interactions. which emerge under careful consideration about The key message here is that self- how internal “properties” of experts become organization does not signify the effects of a connected to the environment (Turvey & Shaw, sum of weights of different correlated variables. 1995). For example, where are such internal Rather self-organization tendencies can result in constructs located in expert nervous systems an emergent system solution that is richer and (talents, mental representations, traits, and more functional than the sum of the parts. When dispositions) and how did they originate? How a system establishes a state (i.e., Beamon do environment-individual interactions occur performing the long jump task in the Olympic that explain those traits? How can such Stadium) as a result of the dynamical environment-individual interactions that form interactions among several interacting system traits be tested? Put simply, environmental tasks components, self-organization tendencies where internal “traits” are expressed tend to be causally facilitate such a state. Behaviors that excluded from an explanation of expertise, or in emerge may be temporarily assembled and are some cases interpreted with a task description different from the elemental components that that is not commensurate with measured internal make up the system. In this way, human variables (Hoffman, Ward, Feltovich, DiBello, performance can be understood as an expression Fiore, & Andrews, 2014). of self-organizing tendencies under constraints, The previous section highlighted a rather than organization exclusively imposed configuration of performer, environment, and from the inside (e.g., feelings, speed, technique, task constraints that interacted to make Bob intentions) or the outside (e.g., the altitude, fast Beamon’s expert performance possible. How runway, competitive pressure). can an explanation of expert performance in But how do the many interacting sport (exemplified here by long jumping) components of such systems exploit self- simultaneously entail constraints related to the organization tendencies? It seems that the performer and the environment? To performance answer lies in the surrounding patterns of analysts in athletics, Beamon was a slim, long- stimulus energy (which provides information for legged athlete with an inconsistent technique action, see below) in an environment (i.e., (Davis, 2015). This means that on some information in Gibson’s [1979] sense) that occasions his technique facilitated good pressure a complex system to change, resulting performances, and in others it did not. The in the spontaneous emergence of distinctive influence of altitude, weather conditions, his patterns (behavior) between system components weight/strength ratio, his psychological state due (Davids, Araújo, Hristovski, Passos, & Chow, to agitation the night before, the intense 2012). The role of adaptive capacities and self- competition with the other high-level athletes in organizing tendencies is reflected in the variety competition, the fast runway of Olympic of behaviors that individuals can exploit during Stadium, and his past variable sport practice performance—and their ability to vary those experiences may have all coalesced to support behaviors from trial to trial to achieve superior his performance at that single moment. All these performance outcomes (see Davids et al., 2015). constraints may have influenced his actions to Adaptive movement variability provides the self-organize in a performance that cannot be capacity of individuals to achieve high

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Araújo and Davids (2018) Expert Performance and the Performer-Environment System performance outcomes under perturbations that skill differences between chess players within dynamic performance environments (e.g., become less predictive of competitive outcomes successfully hit the take-off board during a run- as time pressure increases. Also, Gobet and up in varied environmental conditions). Simon (1996) compared the performance of the The scale of adaptation to constraints is grandmaster Garry Kasparov under normal intentionally regulated by performers, depending tournament circumstances to his performance on the nature of dynamic performance when Kasparov was playing a simul (i.e., environments (Araújo, Davids, & Hristovski, playing several players at the same time) and the 2006). For example, in soccer, performers may time to contemplate his moves was restricted. intentionally constrain their actions, depending Gobet and Simon (1996) showed that on available affordances in a performance Kasparov’s chess rating (a numerical measure of context, to shoot, dribble, or pass the ball. skill) drops from 2,750 to 2,646 when he has to During performance there are variants of each play faster. Calderwood, Klein, and Crandall action that emerge during sub-phases of play, (1988) asked grandmasters to rate the quality of constrained by co-positioning and movements of moves made in fast (blitz) and slow games. teammates and opponents, weather conditions, Their results showed that greater time pressure field surface, properties of the ball, current score decreased the quality of play. Moreover, Chabris of the match, team strategies, and tactics and Hearst (2003) have shown that even (Davids, Güllich Araüjo, & Shuttleworth, 2017). grandmasters make more and bigger mistakes In contrast, in performance of self-paced under conditions where they have less time than timing tasks without direct opponent usual to select their moves. Clearly, interactions, such as climbing or long jumping, environmental time pressure and task type task performance is more stable, and there are influence the performance context in meaningful only a small—but influential—number of ways and must be taken into account in an variations in conditions of the performance explanation of expert performance in chess. environment. In long jumping, these variations Regarding more tragic anecdotal evidence, include properties of the track, board, air during the 41st Chess Olympiad in resistance (altitude), and weather conditions Tromsø, Norway, 2014, Kurt Meier, a Swiss- such as ambient temperature, and wind velocity born member of the Seychelles team, collapsed and direction (Scott, Li, & Davids, 1997; during his final match of the chess marathon Greenwood, Davids, & Renshaw, 2013; two-week contest. Hours later, a player from McClosker et al., in press). When running to Uzbekistan was found dead in his hotel room in place the foot on a target, an athlete’s kinematics central Tromsø. This Olympiad involved 1,800 and kinetics of locomotion vary in each attempt, competitors from 174 countries, accompanied by and indeed from stride to stride (captured in more than 1,000 coaches, delegates and fans. variables like speed, stride lengths, lower limb The event sees players compete in national joint angles, and dynamics) (Renshaw & Davids, teams over 11 rounds, often playing matches that 2006). last for up to six hours, and claims a worldwide Moreover, this approach can expand our online audience of tens of millions (Addley, understanding of phenomena in performance of 2014). While the two men’s deaths were activities such as music or chess (for an attributed to cardiovascular causes, they raise ecological theory applied to chess, see Vicente questions about the mental and physical stress & Wang, 1998). Our argument is that that tournaments place on players. Meier is not performance solutions implicate constitutive the first player to die in the middle of a chess causation provided by self-organization and match, in a tournament environment. In 2000, emergence among influencing factors. These Vladimir Bagirov, a Latvian grandmaster, had a influencing factors are both internal and external fatal heart attack during a tournament in Finland, to the performer. For example, van Harreveld, while in the same year, another Latvian, Aivars Wagenmakers, & van der Maas (2007), showed Gipslis, while playing in Berlin, suffered a

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Expert Performance and the Performer-Environment System Araújo and Davids (2018) stroke from which he later died. One of slanted and textured surfaces, and features of the Australia's leading players, Ian Rogers, retired environment. Light is reflected in straight lines abruptly from chess in 2007, saying he had been and exists in highly structured energy warned by his doctors that the stress of top-level distributions called an optical array (Gibson, competition was causing him serious health 1979). Similarly, acoustic energy provides sound problems. The tournament environment is as vibrations that propagate an audible pressure characterized by uncertainty and intense wave, which can help humans locate the competition, coinciding with the high levels of presence of an approaching object. Gibson motivation to succeed that competitors (1979) argued that there are properties from the have. Potentially stressful tasks, such as those in surrounding energy flows, which remain which expert performance has been studied, tend constantly available for detection, despite to be ones where competitive performance is transformations associated with movement of public and feedback (and consequent judgments observers and the environment; i.e., they are by the audience) is immediate (Murphy, 2012). invariants. Despite the continuous changes to In short, an ecological dynamics approach to energy distributions surrounding a performer, expert performance is a promising avenue to invariants provide information about the conceptualize how a number of interacting environment. The key point concerns the constraints—personal (e.g., age), task (e.g., relationship between an individual and a competitive chess) and environmental (e.g., performance environment, according to Gibson intense coverage in the media)—interact to (1979). He proposed that the optic energy array shape behaviors in every performance domain, detected by the observer offers information for not just in the sports that get the most media visually regulating actions. Available attention. information sources allow a performer to directly and unambiguously perceive the layout Expert Performance Explained by the and properties of objects, events, and features Ecological Dynamics Approach within a performance environment. The Ecological dynamics emphasizes the laws and patterned energy distribution in the environment symmetry conditions at nature’s ecological informs an actor about its relevant properties scale, implying the detection of environmental that can support action. In research on the event information that is used to guide behaviors. of long jumping, previous studies have Gibson (1979) attempted to identify the attempted to identify these information sources relationship between the structured energy available energy distributions. These studies distributions of the environment available to a have suggested how optical information from performer’s perceptual systems and the objects located near the take-off board environmental properties causally responsible (Greenwood, Davids & Renshaw, 2014), as well for that structure. This conceptualization of the as light reflected from the take-off board itself ecophysical basis of performance behaviors (e.g., Scott, Li & Davids, 1997; De Rugy et al., underpins the regulation of actions and should 2002; Renshaw & Davids, 2006), can help not be viewed as some sort of “New Age” skilled jumpers regulate their gait during the interpretation of mystical energy sources approach phase. available in the environment. Information for For Gibson, the process of detecting action, in Gibson’s sense, underpins human information from the surrounding energy arrays behaviors which can be explained with reference is carried out by a functional system distributed to the laws of physics and the evolution of throughout an active performer. Expertise in perceptual systems designed to detect and utilize perceiving key perceptual variables that can available energy sources as information to guide regulate actions emerges as a result of extensive periods of practice and training in specific human behaviors. For example, optical energy, in the form of performance environments (Davids, Güllich, light. is reflected from surrounding objects, Araújo & Shuttleworth, 2017). Skilled

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Araújo and Davids (2018) Expert Performance and the Performer-Environment System adjustments of peripheral organs, such as turning Tau, without the need to mentally compute the eyes and head at the right moment to regulate either distance or speed of the object to intercept the locomotion system, play as significant a role it (Lee, Lishman, & Thomson, 1982). in direct perception. In Gibson’s (1979) theory, According to Gibson (1979) one’s actions perception of the environment is not inferred, guide the detection of information for further nor interpreted/construed as internalized activity adjustments of behavior. The cyclical of the brain and the nervous system. Rather relationship between action and perception perception of information from surrounding implies that information presented in a sport task energy arrays is directly perceived and coupled (e.g., gaps, distances, angles, obstacles, target to actions. This description of the environment is sizes, equipment) will be used to regulate an not achieved in individual-neutral physical terms athlete’s performance behaviors (see Harrison, (e.g., mass, length, time), but in functional (goal- Turvey, & Frank, 2016, for modeling). From this related) terms (e.g., Araújo et al., 2014). viewpoint, expertise is not defined by an Another major idea from Gibson (1979) was athlete’s fixed set of genetic or acquired that the environment is perceived in behavioral components, but rather by a dynamically varying terms (i.e., affordances) which are defined as relationship captured by the constraints imposed possibilities for action offered by the by the task experienced, the physical and social environment. His ideas imply that performers environment, and the personal characteristics of perceive objects, surfaces, other athletes, or a performer (Araújo & Davids, 2011). events by what they offer or demand in terms of action opportunities. Affordances are properties Conclusion of performer-environment systems that can be exploited in patterns of stimulus energy Expertise viewed as a more functional (information) and that can, therefore, be directly relationship of an individual with a performance perceived (i.e., not mentally mediated). environment is distinct from theories which Affordances are goal relevant descriptions of the emphasize the repetition of a particular environment, and perceiving an affordance is to movement pattern or coordination mode through perceive how one can act in a particular set of constant practice (Ericsson et al., 2009). It performance conditions. recognizes the need for each individual learner Perceiving an affordance includes detecting to adapt to, and satisfy, the unique array of information about the environment, and also the interaction constraints impinging on the learner action capabilities (capacities or skills) that at a specific moment. Expert performers are able attune performers to some affordances and not to constantly, and subtly, to re-invent themselves as others. The concept of affordances cuts across key constraints change (Davids et al., 2015). the incompatible objective-subjective divide Due to inherent nonlinearities in complex (Heft, 2013), and is located at the athlete- adaptive systems, the amount of time needed to environment system (transactional) level. For achieve an individual's potential cannot be example, in long jumping, the eyes of a jumper precisely specified; e.g., due to 10,000 hours of can detect the light reflected off surrounding deliberate practice (Phillip, Davids, Renshaw, & objects and surfaces—the take-off board, the pit, Portus, 2010; Macnamara et al., 2016). An a windsock placed near the jumping area— individual's potential is not static, but rather is providing each performer with information for dynamic, and continuously open to ongoing regulating functional actions during the run-up influences of task, individual and environmental and jump phases of performance, as can be constraints; e.g., genes, motivation, practice, and captured by (Greenwood et al. 2013). The rate of availability of facilities and coaching support dilation of an image of an approaching object on (Davids, et al., 2015) an individual’s eye can provide time-to- For example, the idea of (deliberate) practice interception information (placing the foot in the as an influence of the environment concerned take-off board), mathematically modelled as how context enriches the performers’ abilities

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(e.g., Ericsson et al, 2009). This approach contextualized functional value during goal- contrasts with the explanation that individuals directed behavior. and contexts co-determine each other through ecological practice (Davids et al., 2015). Both Authors’ Declarations individual and environment—physical or social—have the potential to be affected and The authors declare that there are no personal or transformed by these interactions. In ecological financial conflicts of interest regarding the dynamics, experts are not an agglomerate of research in this article. physical or mental traits, but active individuals engaged in ongoing dynamical transactions with their functionally defined environments. References Expertise is not a possession acquired by an Addley, E. (2014, August 15). Two players die at world individual, nor a fixed property of a performer, chess event in Norway. The Guardian. Retrieved but rather a dynamically varying relationship from http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/ captured by the constraints of the environment aug/15/deaths-world-chess-olympiad-norway and those of the performer of a task (Araújo & Allain, R. (2012, August 4). Olympic physics: Air density Davids, 2011). and Bob Beamon’s crazy-awesome long jump. Wired. Ecological dynamics emphasizes Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long- jump-air-density/ understanding of the transaction between Araújo, D., Davids, K., & Hristovski, R. (2006). The affordances (opportunities for action) and skills, ecological dynamics of decision making in i.e., how performers become attuned to perceive sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 7, 653-676. key variables that specify goal achievement. Araújo, D., & Davids, K. (2011). What exactly is Through exploratory, varied actions in specific acquired during skill acquisition? Journal of contexts, perceptual systems become Consciousness Studies, 18, 7-23. progressively attuned to some affordances and Araújo, D., Diniz, A., Passos, P., & Davids, K. not to others (Vicente & Wang, 1998). The (2014). Decision making in social neurobiological variables detected become more subtle, systems modeled as transitions in dynamic pattern elaborate, and precise with task-specific formation. Adaptive Behavior, 22, 21-30. experience and are successfully coupled to Araújo, D., Hristovski, R., Seifert, L., Carvalho, J., & Davids, K. (2017). Ecological cognition: Expert actions (for an ecological dynamics explanation decision-making behaviour in sport. International of learning, see Davids et al., 2012). Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 1-25. Key constraints on the performance of expert doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2017.1349826 long jumpers like Bob Beamon, such as Beamon, R. & Beamon, M. W. (1999). The man who technique, altitude, weather conditions, could fly: The Bob Beamon story. Columbus, MS: psychological and emotional states, peer Genesis Press. competition, the fast runway of Olympic Calderwood, R., Klein, G. A., & Crandall, B. W. Stadium, and varied sport experiences, may have (1988). Time pressure, skill, and move quality in all converged to support performance at a single chess. American Journal of Psychology, 101, moment in time. Ecologically constrained self- 481–493. organization tendencies have the power to Chabris, C. F., & Hearst, E. S. (2003). Visualization, pattern recognition, and forward search: eVects of explain emergent performances such as Bob playing speed and sight of the position on Beamon’s jump, which caused an abrupt grandmaster chess errors. Cognitive Science, 27, transition in long jump. This explanation implies 637–648. how more outstanding achievements and Davids, K., Araújo, D., Hristovski, R., Passos, P., & outcomes in sport may emerge as constraints Chow, J. Y. (2012). Ecological dynamics and converging to shape performances destined to be motor learning design in sport. In N. Hodges & remembered for a lifetime. In short, what makes M. Williams (Eds.), Skill acquisition in sport: one individual’s performance more expert than Research, theory and practice (2nd ed., pp. 112- another is not some possessed ability, but its 130). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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