Associate Professor Gert-Jan Pepping - Nat Sch Exercise Science (Faculty of Health Sciences)
Fully accredited supervisor - Can supervise as principal supervisor

I perform research into Psychology, Perception and Action-, Motor Control-, and Decision-Making in Sport, Exercise and Healthy Ageing.
Education, research and consultancy takes place in the following areas:
- Visual exploration and situation awareness.
- Affordances and action-boundary perception.
- Locomotor pointing and falls.
- Built environment and healthy ageing.
- Decisions in sport, exercise and health situations.
- Innovation and wearable technology in sport exercise and healthy ageing.
Key words: Affordances, Exploration, Perception-Action, Perceptual Learning, Experimental Psychology, Sport Science, Falls Prevention.
Contact
![]() | +61 (0) 736237550 (Brisbane) |
![]() | Gert-Jan.Pepping@acu.edu.au |
![]() | Staff Directory Profile |
Research Interests
Perception-Action ; Exploration ; Decision-Making ; Affordances ; Virtual reality ; Situation Awareness ;
Methods Expertise
Experimental methods ;
Research Projects
Seeking Applications
- Using Virtual Reality to develop and promote situation awareness in high performance team-sport (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- An Inter-generational Learning and Living Campus: A New Model for Healthy Senior Living and Integrated School Communities across Urban and Regional Australia. (Funded Grant) (Chief Investigator)
- Exploration and Perception-Action Expertise in Team-Sports (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Play, Exploration and Physical Activity (Child Exploration and Physical Activity in Play System - CEPAPS) (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Measuring and promoting situation awareness in high performance team-sport (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Biomarkers in High Performance Sport: The Sport Hormone - Developing Methodology to Assess Oxytocin Reactivity (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Using Virtual Reality to prevent falls (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Stepping Into the Real World: Assessing the Efficacy of Organised Bushwalking to Prevent Falls (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
Completed Projects
- Exploration in Support of Interpersonal Decision Making in Association Football. (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Understanding Perceptual-Motor Calibration and its Relevance for Successful Movement Control (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
- Action Selection in Tennis Serving: The Influence of Receiving Positions on Service Decisions in Tennis (Master) (Principal Supervisor)
Current Projects
- Developing Technology to Investigate Exploration and Perception-Action Expertise in Field Hockey (PhD) (Principal Supervisor)
Selected Publications
2020
Sleep deprivation impairs affordance perception behavior during an action boundary accuracy assessment , in Acta Astronautica, 166, 270???276.
The effects of fatiguing exercise and load carriage on the perception and initiation of movement , in European Journal of Sport Science.
Learner-adapted practice promotes skill transfer in unskilled adults learning the basketball set shot , in European Journal of Sports Science, 20(1), 61-71.
Constraints on visual exploration of youth football players during 11v11 match-play: The influence of playing role, pitch position and phase of play, in Journal of Sports Sciences 38(6).
Increased risk of musculoskeletal injury following sport-related concussion: a perception-action coupling approach, in Sports Medicine, 50(1), 15-23.
2019
Action Boundary Proximity Effects on Perceptual-Motor Judgments, in Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, 90(12), 1000???1008.
Intersession Reliability and Within-Session Stability of a Novel Perception-Action Coupling Task, in Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, 90(2), 77-83.
Visual exploration when surrounded by affordances: Frequency of head movements is predictive of response speed , in Ecological Psychology
Principles of the Guidance of Exploration for Orientation and Specification of Action , in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 13, 734???11.
Associations between gait-related falls and gait adaptations when stepping onto a curb: A prospective falls study , in Journal of Aging and Health, 27, 309-315
Using microtechnology to quantify torso angle during match-play in field hockey , in Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
2018
Perceptual-motor regulation in locomotor pointing while approaching a curb, in Gait & Posture, 60, 164-170
Development and validation of a sensor-based algorithm for detecting visual exploratory actions, in IEEE Sensors Letters
Flipping sport psychology theory into practice: A context- and behavior centered approach, in In Massimiliano L. Cappuccio (Ed.), Handbook of Embodied Cognition and Sport Psychology. MIT Press.
Children's perception of action boundaries and how it affects their climbing behavior, in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 166, 134-146
Regulation of locomotor pointing across the lifespan: Investigating age-related influences on perceptual-motor coupling, in PLoS One, 13(7)
2017
Factors Affecting Measurement of Salivary Cortisol and Secretory Immunoglobulin A in Field Studies of Athletes , in Frontiers in Endocrinology
The Science of Racing against Opponents: Affordance Competition and the Regulation of Exercise Intensity in Head-to-Head Competition, in Frontiers in Physiology, 8, 239
When a Fly Ball is Out of Reach: Catchability Judgments Are Not Based on Optical Acceleration Cancellation, in Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 535
A systematic review on perceptual-motor calibration to changes in action capabilities , in Human Movement Science, 51, 59-71.
Development and validation of a single wrist mounted inertial sensor for biomechanical performance analysis of an elite netball shot., in IEEE Sensors Letters, 1(5)
A systematic review of the technology-based assessment of visual perception and exploration behaviour in association football., in Journal of Sports Sciences
2016
Cycling in the Absence of Task-Related Feedback: Effects on Pacing and Performance, in Frontiers in Physiology, 7, 511-9
A comparison of coping-styles of individual andA team athletes of Australia and the Netherlands , in International Sports Studies, 37, 36-48.
2015
An ecological stance on risk and safe behaviors in children: The role of affordances and emergent behaviors , in New Ideas in Psychology, 36, 50-59
2014
Extrinsic tau-coupling and the regulation of interceptive reaching under varying task constraints, in Motor Control,18, 347-367
Pacing and decision-making in sport and exercise: The role of perception and action in the regulation of exercise intensity , in Sports Medicine.
2013
"Let's Pick Him!": Ratings of Skill Level on the Basis of In-Game Playing Behaviour in Bantam League Junior Ice Hockey, in International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 8(4), 641-660.
Shaping decisions in volleyball: An ecological approach to decision-making in volleyball passing, in International Journal of Sport Psychology, 44, 197-214.
2012
On possibilities for action: The past, present and future of affordance research, in AVANT: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies, 3 (2), 54-69.
Base on balls for the Chapman strategy: Reassessing Brouwer, Brenner, and Smeets (2002), in Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 74(7), 1488-1498.
Prospective guidance in a free-swimming cell, in Biological Cybernetics, 106(4-5), 283-293.
Self-regulation of learning and relative age in elite youth soccer: International versus national level players. , in International Journal of Sport Psychology 43 (4), 312-325.
Affordances can invite behavior: Reconsidering the relationship between affordances and agency, in New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 250-258.
Oxytocin and the Biopsychology of Performance in Teamsports, in The Scientific World Journal, 2012.
2011
Risk factors for patellar tendinopathy: A review of the literature, in British Journal of Sports Medicine, 45 (4), 310-384.
Affordances shape pass kick behavior in association football: Effects of distance and social context , in Revista de Psicologia del Deporte, 20 (2), 709-727.
Self-regulation of practice behavior among elite youth soccer players: An exploratory study, in The Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 23 (1), 110-128.
2010
Reaction time and movement time in the actualisation of afforded action, in Ecological Psychology, 22(2), 119-149.
Winning a soccer penalty shootout: celebrate individual success and you will yield ultimate team success, in Journal of Sports Sciences. 28(9), 983-992.
2008
TauG-guidance of transients in expressive musical performance, in Experimental Brain Research, 189, 361-372.
No effect of a graded training program on the number of running-related injuries in novice runners. A randomized controlled trial [ISRCTN37259753], in American Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(1), 33-9. doi:10.1177/0363546507307505
The role of haptic exploration of ground surface information in perception of overhead reachability, in Journal of Motor Behavior, 40(6), 491-498.
2007
The GRONORUN study: is a gradual training program for novice runners effective in preventing running related injuries? Design of a RCT [ISRCTN37259753]. , in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2, 8-24.
2005
Unnatural selection: Talent identification and development in sport, in Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology & Life Sciences, 9, 61-88.