Post on 19-Dec-2015
Integrative Technological Approaches to Athletic Training
Perspectives on Mind/Body Communication
Chas Ballew & Cliff BrownPSY/ORF 322May 5, 2005
The Mind and Body of the Athlete
• A Dualist perspective:– The Mind wills the Body to perform
• Mechanical vs. Information Technology
• How can machines:– Help the mind make better decisions?– Provide access to information from the body?
Technology can integrate mind & body by:
– Facilitating awareness and skill development– Helping prevent deficits in metacognition and
decision-making (access deficits)– Integrating/interpreting information too
complex for humans to understand
Awareness& The Quiet Eye
• Problem: Body sometimes takes actions that we aren’t consciously controlling.
• Practically: How can I better control my body to improve my technique?
The Quiet Eye
• Study: Differences between good and poor golf putting and basketball free-throws.
• Good shots focus on the same spot on the ball each time for 2-3 seconds.
• No saccades
Pictures courtesy of Golf Digest Magazine
Will awareness aid performance?
• Possible solutions:– Simple attention: teach
people to try to focus on one spot.
• Doesn’t work!
– Visual feedback studies
– J. Vickers (U Calgary): Eye monitoring technology + visual feedback
Results
• Eye monitoring + visual feedback increases putting & free-throw percentages significantly.
• Possible Explanations: Stable gaze = steady follow-through motions; gaze relaxes V1 cortex, promotes relaxation of motor cortex
• Implication: Machine feedback can significantly improve mind/body communication.
Access Deficits& Core Body Temperature
• Problem: Body may be in a state where 1) the mind is unable to access information regarding the state, and 2) the body state affects decision-making ability & metacognition.
• Practically: Am I ready to try again? Am I in a condition to decide if I’m ready to try again?
Human Body Temperature Regulation
• Cooling Mechanisms – 90% heat loss through skin
• Problem: Core temp, not skin temp, determines performance. No conscious access to core temp.
• Temp neurons – near skin surfaces, not internal organs
Consequences of Limited Access to Core Body Temps
• Inappropriate cooling decisions:– Cold showers– Ice buckets– Wet towels
• Feels good, but• Triggers
vasoconstriction at skin surface reduced blood flow
Consequences of Limited Access to Core Body Temps (cont)
• Core temps continue to rise
• Lead to heat injuries, impaired cognitive functions, and death
Solutions:
• Get access to core temps (difficult) and use them to inform decisions– Problem: even with good information, a hot person
may still make poor decisions
• Preventatively cool the core– Aids decision-making by preserving brain function– Doesn’t unblock conscious access to core temps
• Solves problem of access by eliminating need for access• Fundamentally different from the unaware aware
framework of the “quiet eye” problem
Rapid Thermal Exchange
• Developed by Stanford biologists
• Vacuum dilates capillaries in hand
• Water-cooled plate lowers blood temp through conduction
• Cool blood is carried back to heart & internal organs
Psychological Effects of RTX
• Doesn’t feel cold at point of contact
• Athletes don’t feel cooler– Works from the inside out
• Feel refreshed and ready to try again– Physically and
psychologically• Facilitates prevention of
heat-related cognitive deficits: athletes can make better decisions under stressful conditions!
(What a unique way of helping people make decisions!)
Interpretation: Creating Diagnostic Systems for Humans
• Problem: Sometimes we have plenty of good information from our body – maybe too much! – and we don’t know how to process it all.
• Practically: I feel X% tired from yesterday. How hard should I work out today?
Complex Information Processing
Automotive engineering also faces the problem of analyzingvast quantities of ambiguous information.
What do sensors in cars do?
• Collect, process, and act on information from the system– Sometimes alerting the human operator
• Tire pressure puncture warnings
– Sometimes assisting the human operator• wheel speed comparisons antilock brakes
– Sometimes eliminating the human operator• oxygen sensors fuel mixture
Ideally, we can also alert and assist human athletes by using machines to gather and synthesize data:
inputs (physiological, psychological) f( ) outputs used to inform decisions about future training.
This could help prevent the serious effects of not getting ideal recovery between workouts (overtraining)
a) clarifies ambiguous information
b) serves as a check against overzealous ambitions
There is currently no valid, reliable system capable of integrating the range of inputs available to yield helpful decision aids.
Some purportedly exist, but:1) no published results2) no published methods
How might we go about designing this system?
What sensors do athletes use?
• Psychological Status• Heart Rate monitors• Temperature• Blood Pressure• Bloodwork
– pH, Iron, Sodium
A lot of stuff to bring on a run!
What do athletes use sensors for now?
• Simple, univariate processing (still very complex)– e.g. This is just heart
rate data
• But there has to be a way to interpret more than 1 input!
What could athletes use multivariate processing for?
• Pulse• B.P.• pH• Oxygen• Temperature• Sodium• Vitamins• Mood
• Am I working out hard enough? Too hard?
• Should I drink water?
• How’s my nutrition?• Am I spending
enough time recovering?
Using machine learning to build a model
• Map out variables in feature space
• Train the program on “seasons” or patterns of workout selection
• Determine optimal training selections based on predicted response patterns
Problems
• Need an extremely large data set to train on:– Collect data from many athletes?
• Consistency is important:• Some may be undertrained, some overtrained, but given
state X, they should almost always choose workout Y.• Calibrating any given individual?
– Differences in user stress responses?
– Collecting from an individual:• Would take many years to develop a reliable data set
In the future?
• Implantable pacemaker like devices?
• Using Nanotech labs to collect data?
• Transmitting via Bluetooth to external devices for computation?
Future External Devices
• Device on fingertip like some current heart rate monitors– Smaller, less protrusive?
• Blood analysis through laser/infrared diffraction?– e.g. current surgical oxygen
monitors
What could future devices allow?
• Micro-Scale decisions in real time:– Giving us feedback in real time for
advanced body output• “You have consumed too much water. Stop
drinking.”• “You just feel fatigued, your body is fine to
continue working.”
Conclusions
• Machines can aid the mind in understanding and controlling the body by:– Facilitating awareness and skill development– Helping prevent deficits in brain functioning and
decision-making– (Potentially) integrating/interpreting information too
complex for humans to understand