The Element of Surprise: How Predictive Processing Can Help Coach Practitioners Understand and Develop Skilled Movement in Sport Settings

Predictive processing provides a framework for explaining how the brain solves problems of perception, decision making, and movement control by forming predictions, or plausible explanations, for what is happening in an approximately optimal manner. The strength or confidence of the prediction subjectively shapes whether something “surprising” has happened and whether a person’s perceptions and actions require adjustment. We put forward how predictive processing accounts of skill development emphasise predictive processes of action and perception that allows coaches who identify as “sporting ecology designers,” to better understand how to select the right action opportunities (i.e., affordances) to include in their training designs. We describe how motor learning can be incorporated into training designs through the element of “surprise” or the unexpected variations from the already established internal patterns that athletes have learned over time in a range of performance and practice settings. We conclude by presenting an applied example of coaching the backdoor cut manoeuver in basketball using predictive processing techniques, outlining how aspects of athlete knowledge, intentionality, memories, decision making, and prior experience cognitively coalesce during a coach-led training design to produce stable, yet flexible, movement couplings in a sport-based setting.