Dr Adam Bruton
Senior Lecturer in Sport and Performance Psychology

Research area(s)

My research interests span the fields of sport psychology, experimental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.

I adopt a multidisciplinary approach to understand interactions between neural, cognitive, psychological and behavioral factors associated with the following topics:

• Simulating actions via motor imagery and/or action observation.
• Performance and learning in individuals and teams.
• Immersive technology use in high performance domains.

Research Interests

Simulating actions through action observation and/or motor imagery to:

• Enhance learning of new motor skills / sequences
• Improve performance under pressure
• Increase task- and situation-specific confidence
• Develop mental representations of action in the long-term memory
• Understand joint actions and interactions across multiple persons

Understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning action simulation:

• Using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to assess corticospinal responses to action simulation
• Using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe the roles of different brain areas during action simulation

Testing immersive reality technologies as  alternative forms of perceptual-cognitive, and/or action training:

• Investigating the efficacy of virtual- or augmented-reality for perceptual-cognitive, and/or action training
• Utilizing virtual- or augmented-reality to test possible transfer of perceptual, cognitive or movement outcomes after action simulation training
• Exploring the validity and reliability of immersive technologies as a training tool in high performance contexts

Grants