Shared Knowledge or Shared Affordances? Insights from an Ecological Dynamics Approach to Team Coordination in Sports

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2013

Authors

Pedro Silva (Author) Other; Julio Garganta (Author) FADEUP; Duarte Araujo (Author) Other; Keith Davids (Author) Other; Paulo Aguiar (Author) FCUP

Journal

Title: Sports Medicine

Vol. 43

Pages: 765-772

ISSN: 0112-1642

Publisher: Springer Nature

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 113 Citations

Scopus - 123 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Medical and Health sciences > Health sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-006-7TV

DOI: 10.1007/s40279-013-0070-9

Abstract (EN): Previous research has proposed that team coordination is based on shared knowledge of the performance context, responsible for linking teammates' mental representations for collective, internalized action solutions. However, this representational approach raises many questions including: how do individual schemata of team members become reformulated together? How much time does it take for this collective cognitive process to occur? How do different cues perceived by different individuals sustain a general shared mental representation? This representational approach is challenged by an ecological dynamics perspective of shared knowledge in team coordination. We argue that the traditional shared knowledge assumption is predicated on 'knowledge about' the environment, which can be used to share knowledge and influence intentions of others prior to competition. Rather, during competitive performance, the control of action by perceiving surrounding informational constraints is expressed in 'knowledge of' the environment. This crucial distinction emphasizes perception of shared affordances (for others and of others) as the main communication channel between team members during team coordination tasks. From this perspective, the emergence of coordinated behaviours in sports teams is based on the formation of interpersonal synergies between players resulting from collective actions predicated on shared affordances.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 8