New methods for studying perception and action coupling

To study perception and action, Gibson advocated that “the laboratory must be like life” (Gibson, 1979, p. 3). In other words, the interactive relationship between an organism and his/her envi- ronment must be maintained so that the behavior observed in an experimental context mirrors, as closely as possible, the behavior observed in a realistic sport setting. The concept of repre- sentative design introduced by Brunswik in 1956 emphasized the need to have experimental tasks that allow the player to pick up perceptual information that specifies a property of the environment-actor system (Araújo et al., 2005; see also Chapter 24). In this chapter we will provide a brief overview of the methodologies used to study perception and action in sport and present, in some detail, the opportunities new methodologies such as immersive, interactive vir- tual reality can offer researchers in sport expertise.