Dr Adam Bruton
Senior Lecturer in Sport and Performance Psychology
Heinz Wolff 271
- Email: adam.bruton@brunel.ac.uk
- Tel: +44 (0)1895 266485
- Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences
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
Research grants and projects
Grants
Funder: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Duration: January 2025 - June 2025
Funder: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Duration: February 2024 - November 2024
Funder: Optibiotix Ltd
Duration: July 2023 - March 2024
Funder: The Prebiotic Company
Duration: -
Funder: British Psychological Society, Research Working Groups Scheme
Duration: December 2020 - January 2023
Funder: Experimental Psychology Society, Small Grants Scheme
Duration: January 2019 - April 2023
Funder: Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship (KESS 2) PhD Award.
Duration: May 2018 - September 2022
Funder: Health Innovation Network, South London Innovation and Diffusion Awards
Duration: October 2016 - May 2018
Funder: Wellcome Trust
Duration: July 2015 - September 2015
The overarching purpose of this project was to examine individual differences in eye movements when observing positive team performance as a means to understand the cognitive processes underpinning collective efficacy development. Specifically, we investigated whether fixation metrics across two observation conditions (still images/video footage) varied as a function of familiarity (i.e., familiar/unfamiliar with the observed content) and individual’s collective efficacy beliefs (i.e., high/low).