ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The successful use of extended reality (XR) in sport is highly dependent on the extent to which it can represent the perception-action couplings that exist in the performance setting. However, there are many unknowns regarding the effectiveness of XR technology which is limiting its adoption in sport. Therefore, providing high-performance sporting organisations with more information about the efficacy and utility of XR, specifically its strengths and limitations, is warranted. RESULTS: The results provide insight into the limitations of XR and how those limitations are likely to reduce the effectiveness of XR for training motor skills. The participants described opportunities provided by XR for measuring athlete performance and highlighted several practical applications for enhancing athlete and coaching performance. Using artificial intelligence (AI) for training tactical decision-making and creating new movement solutions was also a key finding. CONCLUSIONS: The use of XR in sport is in its infancy, and more research is required to establish a deeper understanding of its utility and efficacy. This research provides sporting organisations, coaches, athletes, and XR technology companies with insights into where XR technology can have the greatest positive impact on performance in sport.
ABSTRACT
Extended reality is an umbrella term used to describe three computer-generated technologies including virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality. Extended reality is an emerging technology that has been utilised in many high-performance domains including psychology, medicine and the military, with the aim of enhancing perceptual-cognitive skills and motor skills. However, the use of extended reality in sport, particularly at the elite level, has only recently started to receive attention. While the growth of extended reality technology continues to accelerate at a rapid rate, empirical evidence aimed at understanding how these devices can best be applied in high-performance sport has not followed suit. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide clarity for high-performance sport organisations, researchers, sport scientists, coaches and athletes about the current state of extended reality technology and how it has been utilised in sport. In doing so, we first define and give examples of the types of extended reality technology including virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality that are available at the present time. Second, we detail how skill acquisition principles underpinned by the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics can be used to help inform the design and assessment of extended reality training tools. Third, we describe how extended reality has been utilised in sport, including how extended reality tools have been assessed for their level of representativeness, and the effectiveness of extended reality training interventions for improving perceptual-cognitive skills and motor skills. Finally, we discuss the future utilisation of extended reality in sport, including the key learnings that can be drawn from other domains, future research directions, practical applications and areas for consideration related to the use of extended reality for training skills in sport.
Subject(s)
Sports , Virtual Reality , Athletes , Humans , Motor Skills , TechnologyABSTRACT
There has been a growing interest in using virtual reality (VR) for training perceptual-cognitive skill in sport. For VR training to effectively simulate real-world tennis performance, it must recreate the contextual information and movement behaviours present in the real-world environment. It is therefore critical to assess the representativeness of VR prior to implementing skill training interventions. We constructed a VR tennis environment designed for training perceptual-cognitive skill, with the aim of assessing its representativeness and validating its use. Participants movement behaviours were compared when playing tennis in VR and real-world environments. When performing groundstrokes, participants frequently used the same stance in VR as they did in the real-world condition. Participants experienced a high sense of presence in VR, evident through the factors of spatial presence, engagement and ecological validity being high, with minimal negative effects found. We conclude that Tennis VR is sufficiently representative of real-world tennis. Our discussion focuses on the opportunity for training perceptual-cognitive skill and the potential for skill transfer.
