Associate Professor Sean Muller
Associate Professor, Exercise and Sport Science
Campus
Biography
Associate Professor Sean Müller is a motor learning and control academic in the discipline of exercise and sport science. Sean has some 20 years' experience in higher education, including lecturing and research with national and international organisations, as well as leadership of an academic unit, research groups and university-level representation to industry. For example, Sean has conducted research with the Western Australian Cricket Association, Kookaburras and Hockeyroos, Western Force Rugby, Perth Heat and Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball in USA.
More recently, Sean has consulted on vision and action to major league baseball, as well as conducted research projects with Cricket Victoria, Greater Western Rebels, Ballarat Cricket Association, Victorian Institute of Sport and University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies.
Sean is currently leading threat assessment decision-making projects with Western Australia Tactical Response Group special operations police. He is a member of the research Centre for Smart Analytics and has served as Federation University’s Defence Science Institute Liaison Manager. He is an editorial board member for Journal of Sports Sciences (Sport and Exercise Psychology section) and Journal of Expertise, as well as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychology (Performance Science section).
Fields of research
- Motor control
- Sensory processes, perception and performance
- Learning, motivation and emotion
More about Sean
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
- Master of Philosophy (Research), Australian Catholic University
- Bachelor of Applied Science (Human Movement), Deakin University
Areas of expertise
Sean’s background is in motor learning, control and experimental psychology with a specialisation in expertise and skill learning. His research experience of some 20 years has focused upon expert visual anticipation and decision-making encompassing sport, law enforcement and military domains, as well as interventions to train anticipation and decision-making. Sean has also conducted research on individual differences, transfer of learning, interdisciplinary factors of expertise in sport and action observation training in stroke survivors. Sean’s knowledge and skills are relevant to a broad range of domains such as sport, defence, law enforcement and rehabilitation. His research has featured in a Forbes article.
Sean’s research has been funded by Defence Science Institute, Victorian Institute of Sport and various sport organisations.
Current
- PhD student, Federation University, ‘Virtual Reality as a training technology to enhance anticipation and batting performance in cricketers’, supervisor.
- Honours student, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, ‘Role of domain-general and domain-specific tasks to assess and train decision-making in law enforcement and military’, co-supervisor.
- PhD student, Federation University, Utilising biological motion perception to understand and accelerate anticipation in law enforcement officers’, supervisor.
- PhD student, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, ‘Accelerating decision-making in Australian Football through virtual reality’, co-supervisor.
- Motor learning and control
- Principles of research in exercise science
Defence collaborations, conference presentations and programs
- Co-investigator with Mr. David Nelson’s research team, University of Southern California, Institute of Creative Technologies, on a U.S. Army funded virtual reality project. Title: Visual Abstraction in Synthetic Training (VAST) Environments.
- Müller, S., Nelson, D., Aptaker, A., Yahata, R., Core, M., Marti, D., & Morris-Binelli, K. (2024). Visual abstraction for virtual reality training of threat assessment. Defence Human Sciences Symposium, Melbourne, Australia.
- Westbrook, M., Morris-Binelli, K., Müller, S., Teng, S., Dekker, E., & Piggott, B. (2024). Special operations officers use of sensory information for decision-making in systematic venue clearance. Defence Human Sciences Symposium, Melbourne, Australia.
- Müller, S., Morris-Binelli, K., Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z. (2022, November 28–30). Visual-perceptual training techniques to accelerate decision-making skill in defence personnel. Defence Human Sciences and Human Performance Research Network Symposium.
- Müller, S., & Morris-Binelli, K. Australian Department of Defence, D-Start Program (2022). Team name: Enhancing Visuomotor Skill.
- Müller, S., Dekker, E., Morris-Binelli, K., Piggott, B., Hoyne, G., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2021, November 29–December 1). Expertise and skill learning knowledge can accelerate performance of soldiers. Defence Human Sciences and Human Performance Research Network Symposium.
Centre for Smart Analytics (CSA)
- Publications
Influence of simulator physical fidelity and immersion on decision-making skill, presence, and cognitive load
- Journals
- DOI reference: 10.1007/s00426-026-02236-2