Raúl Sánchez-García | Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (original) (raw)

Papers by Raúl Sánchez-García

Journal of Expertise, 2021

This paper considers the study of driving skill and performance of human drivers as a key domain ... more This paper considers the study of driving skill and performance of human drivers as a key domain to improve the design and the “expertise” of self-driving cars. Concerted driving with others in roundabouts is a special kind of social expertise —understood as competence in ordinary, mundane activities— deployed by members of society. We illustrate our theoretical arguments about how human cognition works in driving contexts with the analysis of three paradigmatic examples through the lenses of the ecological framework. Based on these analyses, we discuss the need for a more robust and realist theory for developing self-driving cars as potential complications arising from interactions between human drivers and self-driving cars cannot be solved with current socio-cognitive models for decision-making and social coordination. The ecological framework considers that drivers’ exploratory activities rely on the utilization of affordances, rather than on the internal processing of information, which is currently the default assumption guiding self-driving car design. The ecological approach assumes that drivers are embedded agents that act within increasingly complex technological envelopes. Such a framework could be used to investigate how digital driving landscapes may be closely tailored to the drivers’ activities. Finally, future research on driving design should investigate how affordances can be matched with emerging digital technologies for reducing accidents and improving traffic flow.

This paper presents a cognitive ethnography on the variability of interpersonal coordination in d... more This paper presents a cognitive ethnography on the variability of interpersonal coordination in defense against direct screens during basketball games. We collected data through observation of ten games of Estudiantes U18 Team during the 2014/2015 season in Madrid. We filmed the game and showed clips of specific direct screens to players while conducting semi-structured interviews. We analyzed the video and the discourse qualitatively following grounded theory principles. We identified three categories expressing variability: failure, partial repair, and functional variation. Even though communication was quoted by the interviewed players as a key element in their decision-making, other con-textual elements-related to framing and joint attention-affected the degree of variation and success. Based on these findings, the paper offers some recommendations for coaching the tactical behaviour of defense against direct screens.

Sport in Society, 2020

This paper presents an application and a further development of Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning’s ... more This paper presents an application and a further development of Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning’s (2008) Quest for Excitement thesis through the analysis of the recent phenomenon of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) in USA. The research method is based on qualitative data analysis of different digital sources concerning bare-knuckle fighting, ranging from newspaper reports, interviews with promoters and fighters, social network posts, videos, etc. The main finding is that BKFC portrays certain features (e.g. no gloves, blood) that constitute a ‘spectacularization of violence’; it apparently increases the perceived danger of the practice even though it does not increase real harm (e.g. concussions, deaths). BKFC employs other strategies emphasizing control, safety and respectability as a counterweight to obtain an adequate tension balance within the US threshold of sensitivity to violence concerning professional combat sports.
Free copies (50) at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W5Q8TI6WUISCGTTJDUH4/full?target=10.1080/17430437.2020.1814576

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo consiste en aplicar la teoría de la informalización de Cas W... more Resumen El objetivo de este artículo consiste en aplicar la teoría de la informalización de Cas Wou-ters-que amplía las teorías sobre el proceso de civilización de Norbert Elias-al análisis de la actividad deportiva del running tal y como se desarrolló desde la segunda mitad del s. xx en EE. UU. y desde mediados de los años 2000 como tendencia deportiva global. Como parte de la metodología, se han analizado fuentes escritas más relevantes tales como la revista Runner's World, libros de referencia, así como foros de discusión referidos a las actividades propuestas. Como conclusión principal podemos decir que el desarrollo del running se identifica con un patrón informalizador en espiral, pasando por diversas fases de informalización y reformalización durante las cuales hubo una variación de los distintos tipos de valores y discursos asociados a la actividad. Palabras clave: informalización, Wouters, Elias, running, carrera de obstáculos, carrera descalzo/mínima. Abstract This paper applies Cas Wouter's informalisation theory-which continues Norbert Elias's theory on the civilisation process-to the development of running as it unfolded since the second half of the twentieth century in USA and since the mid 2000s as a global sport trend. Different written sources such as the magazine Runner's World and other relevant books and blogs have been used for the analysis. The development of running followed an spiral informalising pattern, alternating between phases of informalisation and reformalisation during wich the discourses and values attached to the activity changed.

Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor interaction... more Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor
interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not
geared to inform or analyze such learning. In particular, educational researchers
investigating instructional interactions still need intellectual and methodological
frameworks for conceptualizing, designing, facilitating, and analyzing how students’
immersive hands-on dynamical experiences become formulated within semiotic registers
typical of mathematical discourse. We present case studies of tutor–student behaviors in a
technologically enabled embodied-interaction learning environment, the Mathematical
Imagery Trainer for Proportion. Drawing on ecological dynamics—a blend of dynamicalsystems
theory and ecological psychology—we examine how students develop effective
sensorimotor schemes as solutions to interaction problems. We argue that in attempting
to enact a new complex skill, learners may improve their performance by spontaneously
constructing an attentional anchor—a real or imagined object, area, or other aspect or
behavior of the perceptual manifold that facilitates motor-action coordination. We further
argue that symbolic artifacts introduced into the arena may both mediate new affordances
for students’ motor-action control and shift their discourse into explicit mathematical revisualization
of the environment. We thus implicate symbolic artifacts as ontological
hybrids evolving from things you act with to things you think with. Students engaged in
embodied-interaction learning activities are first attracted to symbolic artifacts as
prehensible environmental features optimizing their grip on the world, yet in the course
of enacting the improved control routines, the artifacts become frames of reference for
establishing and articulating quantitative systems known as mathematical reasoning.

People face many situations in which their emotions are deeply intertwined with their ability to ... more People face many situations in which their emotions are deeply intertwined with their ability to act intelligently in richly context sensitive ways. Western and Eastern philosophical traditions have long considered the development of emotional responsiveness in performance to be a matter of cultivating embodied virtues. Yet knowing how to cultivate embodied virtues still raises serious challenges. A theoretical challenge: how is intelligent emotional responsiveness even possible? A practical challenge: How can such responsiveness be best trained? This paper considers how these challenges might be met by building on recent developments in enactive philosophy of mind and cognitive science. An enactive take on the emotions, enhanced by the wisdom of East Asian traditions of thought, promises to deepen our understanding of the nature of embodied virtues, to better understand their broader significance and provide fresh insights into how to cultivate them in practice.

This paper claims that situated normativity is part of the task constraints which affect the dyna... more This paper claims that situated normativity is part of the task constraints which affect the dynamic process of decision making. Situated normativity is mainly defined by behavioural modes and levels of expertise, expressed in and as ethnomethods.
12 Krav Maga participants (five novices, five intermediates, two
experts) were distributed into two experimental groups. Each group underwent a different experimental breaching condition: G1 faced a boxer that performed a judo
attack (Morote Dori); G2 faced a judoka that performed a boxing attack (Jab). Results showed that every participant, irrelevant of their level of expertise, was surprised by the attack in T1. During T2, expectancies of the previous trial acted as a
task constraint that affected participants in different ways. As a general trend, novices were still surprised but experts and intermediates were not. The detailed comparison of two case studies suggested that adaptability was only possible for
experts, not novices.

This article states that research in skill acquisition and execution has underestimated the relev... more This article states that research in skill acquisition and execution has underestimated the relevance of some features of attention. We present and theoretically discuss two essential features of attention that have been systematically overlooked in the research of skill acquisition and execution. First, attention alters the appearance of the perceived stimuli in an essential way; and second, attention plays a fundamental role in action, being crucial for solving the so called ’manymany
problem’, that is to say, the problem of generating a coherent behavior by selecting between many inputs and many potential outputs. We discuss the importance of these features for skill acquisition in sport. We also suggest empirical ways to assess the precise impact of taking them into consideration and at the same time we propose important implications for training derived from the ideas discussed in the paper.

Whereas Natural User Interface technological devices, such as tablets, are bringing physical inte... more Whereas Natural User Interface technological devices, such as tablets, are bringing physical interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not geared to inform or interpret such learning. In particular, educational
researchers investigating instructional interactions still need intellectual and methodological frameworks for conceptualizing, designing, facilitating, and analyzing
how students’ immersive hands-on dynamical experiences become formulated within semiotic registers typical of mathematical discourse. We present paradigmatic empirical
examples of tutor–student behaviors in an embodied-interaction learning environment, the Mathematical Imagery Trainer for Proportion. Drawing on ecological dynamics—a
blend of dynamical-systems theory and ecological psychology—we describe the emergence of mathematical concepts from the guided discovery of sensorimotor schemes.

El objetivo del artículo es desarrollar de forma teórica una herramienta didáctica para mejorar l... more El objetivo del artículo es desarrollar de forma teórica una herramienta didáctica para mejorar la adquisición de habilidades motrices. Se trata
de las cadenas hápticas (CH), que representan gráficamente la conexión de puntos hápticos clave. El sentido háptico (tacto dinámico) es de vital
importancia en habilidades que implican distancia nula, siendo la información visual limitada y el contacto entre participantes continuo y determinante.
La aplicación de las CH debe complementarse con la utilización de metáforas motrices que, centrado en un tipo de instrucción implícita, ayudan a la
comprensión cinética del movimiento a ejecutar. Para ejemplificar el potencial de este tipo de trabajo hemos escogido dos técnicas de judo pie: O Soto
Gari y Harai Goshi.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Volume 14, Issue 2, pp 309-331, 2015

On a Dreyfusian account performers choke when they reflect upon and interfere with established ro... more On a Dreyfusian account performers choke when they reflect upon and interfere with established routines of purely embodied expertise. This basic explanation of choking remains popular even today and apparently enjoys empirical support. Its driving insight can be understood through the lens of diverse philosophical visions of the embodied basis of expertise. These range from accounts of embodied cognition that are ultra conservative with respect to representational theories of cognition to those that are more radically embodied. This paper provides an account of the acquisition of embodied expertise, and explanation of the choking effect, from the most radically enactive, embodied perspective, spelling out some of its practical implications and addressing some possible philosophical challenges. Specifically, we propose: (i) an explanation of how skills can be acquired on the basis of ecological dynamics; and (ii) a non-linear pedagogy that takes into account how contentful representations might scaffold skill acquisition from a radically enactive perspective.

Journal of Expertise, 2021

Sport in Society, 2020

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Volume 14, Issue 2, pp 309-331, 2015

According to Norbert Elias, any social process unfolds within a shifting balance between centrifu... more According to Norbert Elias, any social process unfolds within a shifting balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces. Elias identified such balance on the civilizing-decivilizing relational axis. Nonetheless, expanding Cas Wouters discussion on informalization, this oral presentation states that a formalizing-informalizing relational axis must be also taken into account in any figuration at any moment. Thus, we could identify centripetal and centrifugal forces on both axis of relation: civilizing (going to the middle range, moderation) and formalizing (concentration) are representatives of centripetal forces and decivilizing (polarization, going to the extremes) and informalizing (expansion) are representatives of centrifugal forces. This way, we obtain a classification of four possible compounded trends: decivilizing-informalizing, decivilizing-formalizing, civilizing-formalizing and civilizing-informalizing.
To further explore and empirically test this fourfold classificatory scheme I present a brief analysis of different cases from the development of Japanese martial traditions: (1) Sengoku Period (1467-1603) as an example of deciv-informaliz trend in which the expansion of martial techniques and tactics grew exponentially in a crude and violent way; (2) Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1867) as an example of civ-formaliz trend in which martial techniques and tactics were systematized but also tamed; (3) Showa Period before WWII (1926-1945) as an example of deciv-formaliz trend in which martial traditions were used by the State to foster a nationalistic-militaristic ethos among Japanese citizens; (4) 1970s-1990s Period as an example of civ-informaliz in which Mixed Martial Arts such as kickboxing, K-1 and PRIDE only apparently increased the level of violence, becoming successful representatives of spectacular, professional combat sports model.

Learning scientists have been considering the validity and relevance of arguments coming from phi... more Learning scientists have been considering the validity and relevance of arguments coming from philosophy and cognitive science for the embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended nature of individual learning, reasoning, and practice in sociocultural ecologies. Specifically, some design-based researchers of STEM cognition and instruction have been evaluating activities for grounding subject content knowledge in interactive sensorimotor problem solving. In so doing, we submit, the field stands greatly to avail of theoretical models and pedagogical methodologies from disciplines oriented explicitly on understanding, fostering, and remediating motor action. This conceptual paper considers potential values of ecological dynamics, a perspective originating in kinesiology, as an explanatory resource for tackling enduring Learning Sciences research problems. We support our position via an ecological-dynamics reexamination of the function of metaphor in the instruction of sports skills, somatic awareness, and mathematics. We propose a view of metaphors as productive constraints reconfiguring the dynamic system of learner, teacher, and environment.

The Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia, 2020

Desde su origen en la modernidad, el cuerpo deportivo se ha constituido dentro de unas relaciones... more Desde su origen en la modernidad, el cuerpo deportivo se ha constituido dentro de unas relaciones de poder que privilegiaban la práctica de hombres sanos, de clase alta y blancos. Sin embargo, el cuerpo deportivo actual está atravesado por una geneaología de luchas que han logrado emanciparlo de su jaula primigénea. Precisamente, lo que pretende este pequeño ensayo es adentrarnos en la historia reciente de esas luchas.

This chapter analyzes the development of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) from a figurational perspective... more This chapter analyzes the development of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) from a figurational perspective. It presents a brief introduction to MMA and its international
development, then a theoretical discussion on the figurational concepts of ‘quest for excitement’ and ‘informalization’ which are latterly applied to
understanding the development of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), the most successful MMA organization. This chapter draws on personal
interviews with UFC ringside physicians, expert UFC journalists and statistical information from specialists to argue that the overall development of MMA is an example of the informalizing trend of the sportization process.

This chapter deals with the application of informalisation theory to sports. More specifically, i... more This chapter deals with the application of informalisation theory to sports. More specifically, it explores the informalising and reformalising phases occurring in the development of jogging/running in the USA (1960-2000). A spiralling fashion of informalising and reformalising trends was observed in the changes of jogging/running during three different periods: 1st period (informalisation), during the 1960s and 1970s, constituting the first jogging explosion; 2nd period (early reformalisation), during the 1980s; and 3rd period (consolidated reformalisation), during the 1990s, constituting the second explosion of running.

This is the first long-term analysis of the development of Japanese martial arts,connecting ancie... more This is the first long-term analysis of the development of Japanese martial arts,connecting ancient martial traditions with the martial arts practiced today.
The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts captures the complexity of the emergence and development of martial traditions within the broader Japanese civilising process.
The book traces the structured process in which warriors’ practices became systematised and expanded to the Japanese population and the world. Using the
theoretical framework of Norbert Elias’s process-sociology and drawing on rich empirical data, the book also compares the development of combat practices
in Japan, England, France, and Germany, making a new contribution to our understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics of state formation. Throughout this
analysis light is shed on a gender blind spot, taking into account the neglected role of women in martial arts.
The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts is an important reading for students of socio-cultural perspectives in sport, sociology of physical activity,
historical development of sport in society, Asian studies, sociology and philosophy of sport, and sports history and culture. It is also a fascinating resource for scholars,
researchers, and practitioners interested in the historical and socio-cultural aspects of combat sport and martial arts.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to relate the analysis of duelling in the ‘Boxing and ... more The aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to relate the analysis of duelling in the ‘Boxing and Duelling’ (BD) manuscript with other Elias’s works where duelling is discussed; and second, to expand Elias’s analysis on the specific development of duelling and fencing in the French case. Combat activities performed by ruling classes in civil society (not warfare) constitute a good candidate for comparisons on different national patterns of civilizing processes. Analysis of the development of such combat activities provides a privileged window to observe links between processes of state formation, monopoly of violence and changes in the militaristic ethos of the ruling classes.