Anxiety and attention 5

Question 1

The BASES statement analyses visual attentional control, what is presented?

Answer 1

Wood & Wilson (2010) presented 3 types of visual strategy that a kicker may use in a penalty.

• keeper independent (pick a spot and shoot no matter where keeper goes),
• keeper-dependant (figure out where keeper goes and shoot other way)
• opposite-independent (look one way and shoot the other)

Question 2

Which visual strategy is recommended?

Answer 2

keeper-independent proposed to yield the most accurate shots.

Question 3

Whilst these strategies may be good in training, a key weakness of the BASES statement is that…..

Answer 3

it does not acknowledge the difference in pressure, and consequent anxiety, between training and match situation.

Question 4

What does Attention Control Theory state?

Answer 4

that when we are anxious our ability to control what we want to attend to is supressed and our attention shifts to what we see as threatening stimuli (Eysenck et al, 2007)

Question 5

What does ACT explain?

Answer 5

why more ‘saveable’ shots are produced under pressure because players are focusing on the keeper instead of where they are aiming to shoot.

Question 6

In order to overcome this, the BASES statement should….

Answer 6

address ways in which to recreate high pressure situations in training to simulate the feeling that players will experience during competition and enable them to practice skills in this environment