Ludovic Seifert

• PhD Sport Sciences
• Professor (Full) at Université de Rouen Normandie

Research in experimental psychology has contributed to the understanding of safe and effective transport. Analysing the perceptual-motor skills that support safely riding a vehicle and navigating the traffic environment has practical implications for improving educational programs, transport policies, and infrastructure and vehicle design. First, o...

Purpose : To investigate race-management strategies over a longitudinal case study of one of the world’s best female swimmers of the 200-m freestyle to understand if only 1 race-management strategy allowed her to succeed or whether several profiles have been used over the 8 years of analysis. Methods : Different race-management strategies within an...

Introduction: Expert performance relies on the athlete’s capacity to functionally adapt their movements to the dynamics of complex performance environments. We hypothesised that, in expert-level volleyball serve-reception: i) reception type is associated with receiver’s role, but not with reception efficacy, set outcome and receiver’s attack availa...

Nested affordances in the case of person-object systems when using objects for locomotion is still unclear, notably regarding the interplay between body- and action- scaling. We investigated how different person-object systems calibrate to changes in aperture width and its relation to action capabilities when using e-scooter. Thirty-nine beginner e...

Classically, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) are composed of a 3D accelerometer, a 3D gyroscope, and a 3D magnetometer. Taken into isolation, those electronical devices offer the opportunity to propose an embedded follow-up of the athlete in his/her daily activities to extract kinematical parameters related to performance. Moreover, when the sign...

In this study, a temporal graph model is designed to model the behavior of collective sports teams based on the networks of player interactions. The main motivation for the model is to integrate the temporal dimension into the analysis of players’ passing networks in order to gain deeper insights into the dynamics of system behavior, particularly h...

The aim was to investigate the effect of breathing conditions and swimming pace on the relationships between the impairment, the breathing laterality and motor coordination symmetry in elite front crawl Para swimmers. Fifteen elite Para swimmers with unilateral physical impairment or with visual impairment and unilateral breathing preference perfor...

Actuellement, les méthodes mixtes de recherche suscitent un intérêt croissant dans le domaine des sciences du sport. À ce jour, des réflexions épistémologiques et paradigmatiques ont été engagées lorsqu’il s’agit d’articuler des méthodes, outils et/ou données hétérogènes dans ce type de recherche. Cet article s’inscrit dans cette veine. Il propose...

Ce chapitre présente les technologies les plus utilisées et les plus récentes dans le milieu de l’entraînement et de la préparation physique telles que les systèmes vidéo (multi-caméras), de localisation globale (GNSS) ou locale (LPS), et de centrales inertielles. Cette omniprésence de la technologie impose aux utilisateurs de connaître précisément...

Front crawl swimming is a cyclic activity that can be broken down into stroke phases. Traditionally, video analysis is considered as the gold standard technique to identify these key points of the cycle (entry, pull, push and recovery) but is very time-consuming and somewhat error prone. The development of embedded sensors such as inertial measurem...

Most learn-to-swim programmes are undertaken in one location (often a swimming pool), which is potentially less effective than learning across a range of aquatic places and contexts. Water safety education delivered in multiple environments may improve skill development and transfer. We investigated whether a combined pool and open water programme...

Human behavior often involves the use of an object held by or attached to the body, which modifies the individual’s action capabilities. Moreover, most everyday behaviors consist of sets of behaviors that are nested over multiple spatial and temporal scales, which require perceiving and acting on nested affordances for the person-plus-object system...

The accurate perception of affordances has been shown to be codetermined by individual’s body dimensions and action capabilities. When using an object such as a scooter to pass through apertures, the perception of pass-ability reflects the person-object dimensions relative to the aperture. However, it is still unclear how body- and action-scaling i...

Investigating realistic visual exploration is quite challenging in sport climbing, but it promises a deeper understanding of how performers adjust their perception-action couplings during task completion. However, the samples of participants and the number of trials analyzed in such experiments are often reduced to a minimum because of the time-con...

In perceptual-motor learning, constant and variable practice conditions have been found to have differential effects on learners’ exploratory activity and their ability to transfer their skills to novel environments. However, how learners make sense of these practice conditions during practice remains unclear. This study aimed to analyse learners’...

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the intra- and inter-individual variability in arm-leg coordination during the underwater phase of the turn segment in 200 m breaststroke. Thirteen male swimmers were recruited and performed a 200 m breaststroke in a pre-calibrated 25 m pool. Sub-phases during the underwater segment were obtained...

In rock climbing, climbers use their arms to regulate their posture on the wall, which can lead to localised muscle fatigue. Evidence shows fatigue is the primary cause of falls, but little is known about how fatigue specifically affects climbing rhythm and hand movements. The present study examined climbing fluidity and hand movements on an indoor...

Constraints on practice can benefit motor learning by guiding the learner towards efficient coordination patterns, but can also narrow the potential solution space of coordination and control. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether narrowing the solution space through more restrictive task constraints limits the expression of potential ex...

Recent research highlighted the interest in 1) investigating the effect of variable practice on the dynamics of learning and 2) modeling the dynamics of motor skill learning to enhance understanding of individual pathways learners. Such modeling has not been suitable for predicting future performance, both in terms of retention and transfer to new...

Affordance perception is a forward-looking act of the opportunities of action offered by the environment and relative to individual capacities. This is exemplified by experienced rock climbers who must determine the task goal (use hold for support or facilitate movement) when balancing on one or both of their feet. The present study examined how th...

Several constraints, including environmental (e.g., aquatic resistance, temperature and viscosity), organismic (e.g., anthropometry, buoy- ancy) and task-related (e.g., imposed swim speed or stroke rate) impact motor coordination and swimming performance. As motor coordination requires structurally organising intra- and inter-limb coupling, the pur...

Drowning has been the cause of over 2.5 million preventable deaths in the past decade. Despite the fact that the majority of drownings occur in open water, assessment of water safety competency typically occurs in swimming pools. The assessment of water safety competency in open water environments brings with it a few difficulties, but also promise...

A large body of literature has highlighted the role of exploration in skill acquisition, with much of it showing that variable practice conditions encourage exploration. However, how learners make sense as they explore contrasting learning conditions remains unclear. Our study, rooted in the enactive approach tested a twofold hypothesis: (1) explor...

The target article promotes an enactive approach to human behaviour, highlighting the phenomenology of agent-environment coupling, and is rooted in the course of experience from pre-reflective self-consciousness. In our comment we debate the idea that experience does equate with subjectivity. Such an equation reflects an organismic asymmetry locati...

This chapter presents an ecological dynamics approach to conceptualizing affordances in the context of sports to understand the acquisition of skilled behaviors. Ecological dynamics is a multidisciplinary framework anchored in the sciences of complex systems, framed by concepts in ecological psychology and nonlinear dynamics, for analyzing behavior...

In climbing, the visual system is confronted with a dual demand: controlling ongoing movement and searching for upcoming movement possibilities. The aims of the present research were: (i) to investigate the effect of different modes of practice on how learners deal with this dual demand; and (ii) to analyze the extent this effect may facilitate tra...

This study investigated the effects of a coordinative in-water training. Total 26 young swimmers (16 boys) were divided in a training group (that performed two sets of 6 × 25-m front crawl, with manipulated speed and stroke frequency, two/week for eight weeks) and a control group. At the beginning and end of the training period, swimmers performed...

Constraints on practice can benefit motor learning by guiding the learner towards efficient coordination patterns, but can also narrow the potential solution space of coordination and control. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether narrowing the solution space through more restrictive task constraints limits the expression of potential ex...

(1) Background: Uncertainty in extreme sports performance environments, such as climbing, provides considerable psycho-emotional and physiological demands, notably due to the many different environments in which climbing can be performed. This variety of environments, conditions of practice and engagement would challenge the acquisition of perceptu...

Correct rider oscillation and position are the basics for a good horseback riding performance. In this paper, we propose a framework for the automatic analysis of athletes behaviour based on cluster analysis. Two groups of athletes (riders vs non-riders) were assigned to a horseback riding simulator exercise. The participants exercised four differe...

The evaluation of motor skill learning traditionally relates to compare performances and skills prior and after a period of constant practice. Recent research highlighted the interest of investigating variable practice and of modelling the dynamics of skill learning to better understand individual pathways of learners. Such modelling did not allow...

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and the reliability of a swimming sensor to assess swimming performance and spatial-temporal variables. Six international male open-water swimmers completed a protocol which consisted of two training sets: a 6×100m individual medley and a continuous 800 m set in freestyle. Swimmers were equipp...

In everyday situations, and particularly in some sport and working contexts, humans face an inherently unpredictable and uncertain environment. All sorts of unpredictable and unexpected things happen but typically people are able to skillfully adapt. In this paper, we address two key questions in cognitive science. First, how is an agent able to br...

Introduction Recently Baggs and Chemero (2018. “Radical Embodiment in Two Directions.” Synthese, 1–16. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-02020-9) advocated for the possible ‘productive synthesis’ between the enactive and the ecological approaches in order to understand and to explain how an agent behaves and interacts with the environment. This paper argues t...

Nonlinear Pedagogy has been advocated as an approach that views acquisition of movement skills with a strong emphasis on exploratory behaviors and the development of individualized movement skills. Underpinned by Ecological Dynamics, Nonlinear Pedagogy provides key ideas on design principles to support a teaching and learning approach that accounts...

This study investigated how skill level and task complexity influence the calibration of perception-action and particularly how close an individual acts relative to his or her maximal action capabilities. Complexity was manipulated between two (Touch, Grasp) and more than two (Removing, Moving Up) nested affordance conditions. For all conditions, w...

Swimming performances are multifactorial and primarily include anthropometric, hydrodynamic, bioenergetic and biomechanical factors whose contributions depend on age, gender, swimming distance and swimming stroke. An integrative and multivariate approach to swimming captures the complexity and various pathways of performance, but swimming technique...

Objectives To investigate the arm–leg coordination from different perspectives of motor control during the underwater start sequence to understand whether differences exist between the three competitive breaststroke swimming events. Design Cross-sectional study. Methods Forty-one breaststroke races (with race times relative to the world record):...

The first objective was to test the validity, reliability and accuracy of paired inertial measurement units (IMUs) to assess absolute angles relative to Vicon and OptiTrack systems. The potential impacts of slow vs. rapid and intermittent vs. continuous movements were tested during 2D laboratory analyses and 3D ecological context analysis. The seco...

In breaststroke races, the dolphin kick could finish before, at the same time, or during the arm pull-out, but it is unclear how swimmers perform this technique. The aim of this study was to investigate whether swimmers glide between the dolphin kick and arm pull-out, favour continuity or even overlap those two phases, as it would impact the active...

In respect to ecological psychology processes of attunement and calibration, this critical review focusses on how exploratory behaviors may contribute to skilled perception and action, with particular attention to sport. Based on the theoretical insights of Gibson (The senses considered as perceptual systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1966) and Ree...

The objectives of this study were to identify how spatiotemporal, kinetic, and kinematic parameters could (i) characterize swimmers' adaptability to different swimming speeds and (ii) discriminate expertise level among swimmers. Twenty male participants, grouped into (a) low-, (b) medium-, and (c) high-expertise levels, swam at four different swim...

Visual and haptic exploration were shown to be central modes of exploration in the development of locomotion. However, it is unclear how learning affects these modes of exploration in locomotor task such as climbing. The first aim of this study was to investigate the modifications of learners’ exploratory activity during the acquisition of a percep...

Background: In this paper, we explore physical education from a relational worldview. Theoretically guided by an ecological dynamics framework, this perspective calls us to conceptualise ‘education’ in its etymological roots – ex-ducere – meaning ‘to lead’ an individual ‘out’ into the world. In doing so, an educator would employ a ‘softer’ pedagogy...

To understand the dynamic patterns of behaviours and interactions between athletes that characterize successful performance in different sports is an important challenge for all sport practitioners. This book guides the reader in understanding how an ecological dynamics framework for use of artificial intelligence (AI) can be implemented to interpr...

Nested affordances in climbing comprise of multiple sequential actions, encompassing more than isolated reaching and grasping. This study examined the extent to which the perception of (multiple) nested affordances in climbing can be understood relative to body-scaled anthropometrics (arm span) and action-scaled (maximal action capabilities) measur...

Dynamics of Skill Acquisition, Second Edition, provides an analysis of the processes underlying human skill acquisition. As the first text to outline the multidisciplinary ecological dynamics framework for understanding movement behavior, this heavily updated edition stays on the cutting edge, with principles of nonlinear pedagogy and methodologies...

Herewith, we present a learning procedure that allows to deal with a partially labeled sequence dataset, i.e. when each sequence in the train dataset may contain labeled as well as unlabeled chunks. In our application case, this occurs when motor activity has been manually annotated (due to the recognition based on the video recording) and independ...

To cope in various aquatic environments (i.e. swimming pools, lakes, rivers, oceans), learners require a wide repertoire of self-regulatory behaviours such as awareness of obstacles and water properties, floating and moving from point to point with different strokes, decision making, emotional control and breathing efficiently. By experiencing diff...

The aim of this study was to investigate the hold-by-hold climbing fluency dynamics by using an instrumented holds system that measured the contact time on each hold. Forty-four competitive climbers have been analysed in a regional lead climbing competition during a route composed of 41 instrumented holds on 11 m high artificial climbing wall and w...

L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser et de discuter de l’évolution des méthodologies articulant des données hétérogènes (i.e., expérientielles et comportementales) qui se développent actuellement dans le cadre du programme de recherche du cours d’action (Theureau, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015). Dans le domaine de l’expertise en sport, ont été récemme...

This article examines the expansion of methodologies for articulating heterogeneous (experiential and behavioral) data within the course-of-action research program (Theureau, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015). In the area of sports expertise, recent studies have articulated verbalizations based on conscious awareness and behavioral data from largely unconsci...

The capability to adapt to changing conditions is crucial for safe and successful performance in physical activities and sports. According to the affordance‐based control perspective, individuals act in such a way as to take into account the limits of their capability to act. However, it is not clear how strength interacts with skill in shaping per...

This study investigated the effects of gender and the manipulation of the preferred stroke rate on swimming performance and arm coordination in elite front crawl swimmers. Nineteen swimmers performed a dual task, i.e. imposed stroke rate and maximal speed. They swam nine 25‐m trials at maximal speed twice: one trial at the preferential stroke rate,...

We report the evolution of the coordination with velocity in front-crawl swimming which is used in competitions over a large range of distances (from 50 m up to 25 km in open-water races). Inside this single stroke, top-level swimmers show different patterns of arm organization. At low velocities, swimmers select an alternated stroke with gliding p...

Many of the studies on motor learning have investigated the dynamics of learning behaviors and shown that the learning process is non-linear, self-organized, and situated. Aligned with this research trend, studies within the enactive paradigm focus on learners’ lived experience to understand how it shapes their intentions, actions, and perceptions....

Purpose: Motor outputs are governed by dynamics organized around stable states and spontaneous transitions: we seek to investigate the swimmers’ motor behavior flexibility as a function of speed and aquatic environment manipulations. Method: Eight elite male swimmers partook an eight-level incremental test (4% increment from 76% to 104% of their me...

Recent perspectives for the study of perceptual-motor expertise have highlighted the importance for considering variability in gaze behaviour. The present paper explores the prevalence of variability in gaze behaviour in an anticipation task through examining goalkeepers gaze behaviours when saving soccer penalty kicks, with a primary focus on offe...

Expert decision-making can be directly assessed, if sport action is understood as an expression of embedded and embodied cognition. Here, we discuss evidence for this claim, starting with a critical review of research literature on the perceptual-cognitive basis for expertise. In reviewing how performance and underlying processes are conceived and...

To analyze young swimmers’ performance regarding sex and skill level, 23 boys and 26 girls (15.7 ± 0.8 and 14.5 ± 0.8 years old, respectively) were assessed for anthropometry, flexibility, strength, drag, coordination, and biomechanical vari- ables. During a 50-m maximal front-crawl bout, seven aerial and six underwater Qualisys cameras assessed ki...

The aim of this study was to understand the behav-ioral adaptability when environmental constraint was manipulated. In swimming, the continuous and dynamic individual-environment coupling offers a suitable vehicle to understand how aquatic environment can promote effective actions. We manipulated the fluid flow with a trial performed in a flume in...

The aim of this study was to investigate how the use of a real-time visual feedback (Fb) impacts on the learning of postural coordination patterns on a mechanical horse (MH). Twelve participants followed a protocol composed of a pre-test, three learning sessions, a post-test and a retention test. During the pre-, post-and retention tests, the parti...

The skill to swim fast results from the interplay between generating high thrust while minimizing drag. In front crawl, swimmers achieve this goal by adapting their inter-arm coordination according to the race pace. A transition has been observed from a catch-up pattern of coordination (i.e. lag time between the propulsion of the two arms) to a sup...

The incorporation of external tools during a sports activity can be analyzed through the dynamics of appropriation. In this study, we assumed that appropriation could be documented at both the phenomenological and behavioral scales and aimed to characterize trail runners’ interactions with five carrying systems (i.e., backpacks proposing different...

This study aimed to examine young swimmers’ behavioral flexibility when facing different task constraints, such as swimming speed and stroke frequency. Eighteen (five boys and 13 girls) 13- to 15-year-old swimmers performed a 15 × 50-m front crawl with five trials, at 100%, 90%, and 70% each of their 50 m maximal swimming speed and randomly at 90%,...

In this paper, we propose an ecological dynamics perspective on expertise and talent development, with a focus on the role of skill transfer. The ecological dynamics theoretical framework provides an integrated explanation for human behaviour in sport, predicated on a conceptualisation including constraints on dynamical systems, ecological psycholo...

Swimming is a challenging locomotion, involving the coordination of upper and lower limbs to propel the body forward in a highly resistive aquatic environment. During front crawl, freestyle stroke, alternating rotational motion of the upper limbs above and below the waterline, is coordinated with alternating lower limb pendulum actions. The aim of...

Introduction: The constraints-led approach (CLA) and more generally a complex systems perspective on motor learning emphasizes the role of perceptual-motor exploration during learning in order to ensure the acquisition of a highly individualized, adapted and adaptable movement pattern. Recent studies have shown that human beings have a strong tende...

Using an enactive approach to trail runners’ activity, this study sought to identify and characterize runners’ phenomenological gestalts, which are forms of experience that synthesize the heterogeneous sensorimotor, cognitive and emotional information that emerges in race situations. By an in-depth examination of their meaningful experiences, we we...

The aim of this case study was to investigate the role of the visual source of information to approach the wall in order to perform the tumble turn in swimming. The approach of the wall is represented by a T-line located at 2m from the edge of the swimming pool. To understand how this visual information is picked up by the swimmers to approach the...

We seek to investigate the dynamics of the upper limb coordination in front-crawl swimming, manipulating the environment (i.e., classic pool vs. flume) as a function of speed increase (i.e., task constraint). Eight elite male swimmers were volunteered. They first performed 8 50 m bouts at 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100 and 104% of their highest mean s...