Through the preservation of the perception/action loop, immersive, interactive virtual reality technology can offer an exciting new way of studying decision making in sport.
The versatility of this technology in terms of generating digital content means that it can be easily applied to a wide variety of sports (e.g., rugby, soccer, cricket).
In this talk I will present examples that show how the dynamics of the unfolding events (e.g., side-step in rugby, curved free kicks in soccer) presented in a virtual environment impact on the decisions players make.
I will show how an in-depth analysis of the player’s action (what they do and when and how they do it) can offer a new way of studying decision-making in sport.
I will finish by exploring how this technology can be used to profile, train and improve decision making in sport and how it can offer new insight into player performance.
I will suggest that this ability to act in the right place, at the right time and in the right way can be considered as a new form of intelligence, namely action intelligence.