Part I. Stories About Perception and Action Gone Wrong
Chapter 1. Perceptual Errors
The Magnetic Hill
How do visual illusions distort perception and influence action?
The Farmers' Market
What are the roles of motor error and hypervigilance in unintended acceleration accidents?
The Grocery Store
How do population stereotypes shape our interactions with manufactured environments?
Push or Pull?
How do product designs influence people to perform specific actions?
Chapter 2. Decision Errors
Friendly Fire
What role did decision errors play in the death of Patrick Tillman?
Method to His Bratness
Did John McEnroe's verbal abuse of line judges influence their decisions?
Choking Under Pressure
What changes in information processing cause athletes such as Jean Van de Velde to fail under pressure?
Turn Right at the Next Gorilla
What is inattention blindness, and what role does it play in common traffic accidents?
Chapter 3. Action Errors
The Calculator
How can product designs accommodate Fitts' law?
The Gimme Putt
Can Schmidt's law be used to predict the accuracy of golf putts?
Pouring Coffee
How does the information-processing rate create a speed–accuracy trade-off?
Is the Bean Dizzy?
What do Spoonerisms reveal about motor control?
Part II. Adventures in Perception and Action
Chapter 4. Fun With Numbers
Public Opinion Polls
What do central tendency, variability, and statistical significance mean in the context of motor research?
Cutting Wood and Missing Putts
How are constant error, variable error, and absolute error useful for understanding motor control?
The Hot Hand
Do statistics support the existence of hot streaks in sports?
Chapter 5. Perception in Action
Red Light, Green Light
What factors influence reaction time and its measurement?
Jumping the Gun
How can a reaction be distinguished from an anticipation?
Antilock Brakes
How does the complexity of a motor program influence reaction time?
Preventing Penalties and Batting Baseballs
How do athletes use temporal and spatial anticipation?
Craps and Weighted Bats
What role do perceptual illusions play in sport performance?
Chapter 6. Attention
The Toad and the Centipede
Is an internal or external attentional focus better for improving performance?
The Preshot Routine
Why does a consistent mental preparation ritual benefit performance?
Gumbo
What are the limits of attentional capacity?
Fakes
What role does the psychological refractory period play in sport?
Chapter 7. Motor Control
Websites and Silly Walks
How do redundancies help us solve motor problems?
The Curling Draw
What sport skills use open- and closed-loop systems of motor control?
Cool Papa Bell
When vision is interrupted, how does iconic memory guide motor tasks?
Moving Sidewalks and Beer Glasses
How does the end-state comfort effect influence movement planning?
The Tickle
How do motor commands influence sensory feedback during motor control?
The Point of No Return
Is there a point in time after which an initiated motor program cannot be stopped?
Forensic Motor Control
What are generalized motor programs and what do keystroke dynamics reveal about them?
Party Tricks
How does our nervous system use functional linkages to coordinate movements?
Disappearing Act
What makes some coordination patterns more automatic than others?
Part III. Stories About Learning Motor Skills
Chapter 8. Measuring Motor Learning
How You Get to Carnegie Hall
What is the best way to measure progress in motor learning?
The Babe
Can a general motor ability be defined and measured?
Learning to Win From Losing
Why is the learning-performance distinction important?
Zero-Sum Training
What is the practical impact of ineffective training methods?
Chapter 9. Organizing Practice
But I Was Great on the Practice Range!
How does practice repetition influence performance and learning?
The Coach as a Dictionary
What roles does augmented feedback play in motor learning?
The Golfer's Little Helper
What elements of motor learning are neglected when we use mechanical training aids?
Chapter 10. Skill Development
Bend It Like Becker
What types of models are best to observe when learning a skill?
Sport Snake Oils
Can visual training programs improve sport performance?
The Keypad
How do explicit and implicit memories influence skilled performance?
Wayne Gretzky
What role does skilled perception play in sport performance?
Chapter 11. Skill Retention
Shooting Two From the Line
How does the warm-up decrement affect repeated performances?
Like Riding a Bicycle
How are motor skills stored in memory?
H.M.
What does the amnesia suffered by Henry Gustav Molaison reveal about memory and motor skills?
