Perceiving is not just interpreting sensory messages; it is also determining possible actions. The purpose of perception is to get information and to guide actions since it is an act of attention, not a response or a reflex (Gibson, 1996).
Perception goes beyond perceiving simple objects or situations because the importance is what to do when we perceive, and this is deciding the actions that are going to be performed, so perceiving is directly related to acting. Perception is part of actions as well as actions are part of perception. Perception is simulated action because it goes beyond the interpretation of sensory information, including decision and anticipation of actions’ consequences (Berthoz, 1997).
While perceiving, we project our actions in the snow; we convert what was perceived into technical execution, on the tie support of our skis. But, why is it so important to perceive? Because it is the anticipation of our future actions since based on our perception, we decide what to do.
Gibson (1996) says that there is an exploratory action that seeks information and executive actionto control the consequences of the environment, and that perception is action, but exploratory action. Perception works also with an action economy behavior (Proffitt, 2006) according to which, when we perceive external information, we relate it with our goal of minimum effort to accomplish that action. Visually perceiving the terrain layout contributes to action anticipation as a proactive mechanism. If perception fails, we employ reaction as a resource.
Perceiving actions involves processes that relate the environment to the perception of affordances. As a result, similar environments or situations will look different in skiers with different skills or the same skier if his abilities are altered. As an example, the size of a mogul or the inclination of a slope is perceived as difficult if our skills are limited. Some authors suggest that perception is affected by skill variability; this is, in certain days the same slope is perceived difficult, and in others easier.
In skiing, we do not perceive affordances only, but also actions’ restrictions. Ski boots restrict movement freedom; slippery surface restricts balance maintenance; other people and slope configuration restrict paths, and muscle tension restricts our skiing flow.
Mirror system for action perception
Based on a close relation between perception and action, when we see another skier performing a particular action, we activate the representation of action systems used to perform that action; this is called mirror systemfunctioning.
Studies on action perception show that we rely on our bodies, and the action system that moves our bodies, to understand the actions of other skiers. In other words, observing other skiers activates in our brain the motor system of those same actions through mirror neurons. The more similar the activity observed in the way that we would accomplish it, the higher the activation of those action representations.
Perceptual learning
Perceptual learning is a process that uses perception as a way of sensory discrimination in action performance. We perceive our skiing through sensations, but as they do not reveal anything by themselves, we have to interpret and organize them through this process. In the initial stage, we should pay attention to an amount of information that comes from all sensory receptors, and this situation causes us insecurity in performing the skiing technique. As we get more sliding experiences, we interpret and organize sensory information that leads to more stable and controlled skiing. Certainly, we must be inclined to perceive sensations to take advantage of them and build mental representations of our performances that are stored in memory. While going through this process, we also learn to perceive those obstacles that can potentially destabilize us.
The perceptual learning process consists of two basic functions: in the discovery function, we do not only select new information, but we can also amplify meaningful information or delete it. The flow function refers to the dynamics in which we pick up sensory information with minimum attention, as seen in evolved skiers.
Learning to perceive or perceiving to learn?
In classical theory, it is claimed that we must learn for perceiving. According to this theory, we learn through perception progress due to performance experiences. For Gibson (1986), we must perceive in order to learn since perceiving performance changes contributes to learning.
We learn skiing not only by incorporating new ways of skiing improvements, but also because we learn to perceive differently. We learn better perceptions as well as better responses, and this is mainly due to the exploratory activities of slope configuration in terms of different surfaces and snow textures. The key is directing attention related to which sensory information is considered and which to discard. We should reduce the perception of the skiing information to what we just need.
The major difficulties that we find in relation to initial perceptual learning are:
- Our perceptual process is slow, so we take longer to perform the appropriate motor response.
- Our skill to discriminate important information is limited since we must first develop our selective attention.
- We have difficulty in perceiving sensory information coming from various senses.
Perceptual patterns
A pattern, or perceptual schema, is a set of common sensory information that is perceived at a given time associated with information from past experiences. An example could be the perception of the trunk’s forward inclination when riding a bicycle with upper body posture on skis. The recognition of these patterns, or common perceptual schemes, facilitates learning. Sensations from postures, movements, and actions of other sports or everyday activities generate sensory references that we can transfer to skiing.
Biomechanical analogies
Biomechanical analogies are applied in the ski teaching-learning process to relate similar neuromotor aspects of other sports or usual activities. This strategy is used in the execution of a complex motor task, employing a simple mental comparison of the biomechanical “rules” of a known motor gesture, to reproduce and adapt it to the motor action to be learned or improved.
A simple and common biomechanical analogy is to compare feet and legs movements (flexion-extension) during the change of support from one ski to the other as legs movements while pedaling on a bike. This application aims to obtain a quick and simple mental representation of the executing task, and reduce the information processed in our working memory, being this an effective utility mechanism.
According to these considerations, you can apply the following recommendations in your own skiing:
- As you perceive external information, relate it with your goal of minimum effort to accomplish the intended actions.
- Your perception will be affected by your subjective skill variability, this is, in certain days you will perceive the same slope more difficult, and in others you will perceive it easier.
- Transferring sensations from postures, movements, and actions of other sports or everyday activities will generate skiing sensory references.
- Applying biomechanical analogies will help you reduce the information overload of your working memory capacity, facilitating what you are trying to incorporate in your skiing.
