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