Research
Football (i.e., soccer) is the most influential sport in the world. In order to interact with the environment properly, a football player needs to track the ball, his/her teammates and opponents, and to build and update the comprehension of the fast changing dynamics.
From the perspective of cognitive psychology, football playing is an excellent example of a complex dynamic circumstance with stringent time constraints, which requires dynamic tracking and situation awareness (SA). Virtual reality (VR) can simulate real football scenes with the participant immersing in it and seeing from the egocentric view; and VR allows control over the environment and replication of the scenes for experiment and practice.
The objective of the project is twofold: to provide a VR tool for assessing and training SA in football practice, and to create the empirical basis for developing a theoretical framework for investigating dynamic tracking and SA in football. The objective will be achieved through 7 work packages (WPs), including a qualitative study exploring how elites perceive and understand football situations (WP3), an experiment using VR to investigate players’ tracking and SA in football scenes (WP5) and an experiment investigate the difference and transformation between the VR egocentric view and the 2D allocentric view (WP6).
The project will bring together an interdisciplinary team across Finland, China and Germany, consisting of psychology researchers, a football coach, and specialists in VR, coordinated by the fellow and the supervisor (WP1). The fellow will receive training (WP2) on developing VR football environments and adapting them to experiments by working with the Mixed Reality group in the host and visiting the Realistic Depictions Lab in Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (the secondment, WP4). The outcome of the project will be disseminated as papers and patents, communicated with football practitioners and audience, and applied to football training (WP7).
| Role | Member | Background | Speciality |
| Researcher | Dr. Jie Li | MSCA research fellow, Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku | |
| Supervisor | Prof. Jukka Hyönä | Professor, Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku | |
| Theory group | Dr. Lauri Oksama | Academy Research Fellow, National Defence University | Specialist in dynamic tracking and SA |
| Technology group | Dr. Teijo Lehtonen | Senior Researcher, Department of Future Technologies, University of Turku | Head of the Mixed Reality group |
| Dr. Hauke Meyerhoff | Postdoctoral researcher, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Germany | Research scientist in the Realistic Depictions Lab | |
| Dr. Henry Railo | Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku | ||
| Sport group | Coach Teemu Leino | Football coach and psychologist | Pursuing his PhD under Prof. Hyönä’s and Dr. Oksama’s supervision on the topic of dynamic tracking and football. |
| Prof. Yu Zhang | Professor, School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, China |
Funded by Individual Fellowships Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA)