Concentration (chapter 16)

Question 1

Define concentration?

Answer 1

The mental effort placed on sensory or metal events. It is the person’s ability to exert deliberate mental effort on what is most important in a given situation.

Question 2

What are the four components of concentration?

Answer 2

• Focusing on the relevant cues in the environment
• Maintaining that attentional focus over time
• Having awareness of the situation and performance errors
• Shifting attentional focus when necessary.

Question 3

What are the four main process in ‘attentional processes’?

Answer 3

• Breadth of attention
• Scanning behaviours
• Distractibility
• Selective attention bias

Question 4

What are the main differences between experts and novices in attentional processing?

Answer 4

• Experts make faster decisions and better anticipate future events
• Experts attend more to movement patterns
• Experts search more systematically for cue
• Experts selectively attend to the structure inherent in sport
• Experts are more skillful in predicting ball flight patterns.

Question 5

What are the key theoretical notations for attentional selectivity?

Answer 5

Letting some information into the processing system while other information is screened or ignored, akin to using a searchlight to focus on certain things.

Question 6

What are the common selectivity errors?

Answer 6

• Being too broad in one’s focus
• Being distracted from relevant information by irrelevant information
• Inability to shift focus rapidly enough among all relevant cues.

Question 7

What are the key theoretical notations for attentional capacity?

Answer 7

• Attention is limited in the amount of information that can be processed at one time
• Controlled processing is mental processing that involves conscious attention and awareness of what you are doing when you perform a sport skill.
• Automatic processing is metal processing without conscious attention
• Athletes can change from controlled processing to automatic processing as the become more proficient
• Key implication: Automatic processing is less restrictive than controlled processing.

Question 8

What are the key theoretical notations for attentional alertness?

Answer 8

• Increases in emotional arousal narrow the attentional field
• Example of arousal attentional narrowing: Losing sensitivity to cue in the peripheral visual field with increase emotional arousal.

Question 9

What are the types of attentional focus?

Answer 9

Broad-external
Broad-internal
Narrow-external
Narrow-internal

Question 10

Describe broad attentional focus

Answer 10

Allows a person to perceive several occurrences simultaneously. This is particularly important in sports in which athletes have to be aware of and sensitive to a rapid changing environment (i.e. respond to multiple cues).

Question 11

Describe narrow attentional focus

Answer 11

When you only have to respond to one or two cues (a golf putt)

Question 12

Describe external attentional focus

Answer 12

Direct attention outward to an object, such as a ball in baseball or a puck in hockey, or an opponents movement in tennis.

Question 13

Describe internal attentional focus

Answer 13

Is directed inward to thoughts and feelings, as when a coach analyses plays without having to physically perform a, a high jumper prepare to start their run-up, or a bowler readies their approach.

Question 14

What is meant by associative attentional strategies?

Answer 14

Monitoring bodily functions and feeling, such as heart rate, breathing and muscle tension during exercise.

Question 15

What is meant by dissociative attentional strategies?

Answer 15

Not monitoring bodily function; distraction and turning out during exercise

Question 16

What are the research findings on associative strategies?

Answer 16

Are generally correlated with faster running performances, although runner use both associative and dissociative strategies.

Question 17

What are the research findings on dissociative strategies?

Answer 17

Does not increase probability of injury, but it can decrease fatigue and monotony.
It should be used by people who want to increase adherence to exercise.

Question 18

What are the attentional problems?

Answer 18

• Internal distraction

- External distraction

Question 19

What are the internal distractions that effect attention?

Answer 19

• Attending to past events (what was?)
• Attending to future events (what if?)
• Choking under pressure
• Overanalysis of body mechanics
• Fatigue
• Inadequate motivation

Question 20

What are the external distractions that effect attention?

Answer 20

• Visual distractions

- Auditory distractions

Question 21

Describe choking under pressure

Answer 21

Choking is an attentional process that leads to impaired performance and the inability to retain control over performance without outside assistance.

Question 22

Describe the conscious processing hypothesis

Answer 22

Choking occurs when skilled performers focus too much on their conscious attention to the task, much as they would do if they were a novice at the task.
-According to this hypothesis, performance decreases only with increased focus on several task-relevant cues.

Question 23

What are the methods of assessing attentional skills?

Answer 23

• Test of attention and interpersonal style (TAIS)

- Psychophysiological and neurological measures

Question 24

What is ‘test of attention and interpersonal style’?

Answer 24

-Is a trait measure. Sport-specific measures also exist. It’s not without problems.

Question 25

What can effective attenders do that ineffective attenders can’t?

Answer 25

They can attend to several stimuli without getting overloaded and can narrow attentional focus without leaving out important information.

Question 26

What are the psychophysiological and neurological measures?

Answer 26

• EEG (brain activity)

- Heart rate

Question 27

How can we measure ‘attention’ more directly in a sport setting?

Answer 27

• Study their gaze behaviour (visual attention)

- Use eye-trackers (gaze registration systems)

Question 28

What is situational awareness?

Answer 28

The ability of a player to size up game situations, opponents, and competitions to make appropriate decisions based on the situation, often under acute pressure and time demands.

Question 29

What is self-talk?

Answer 29

Is another potential interpersonal distracter. Anytime you think about something you are in a sense self-talking.

Question 30

What are the benefits of self-talk?

Answer 30

• Enhancing concentration
• Breaking bad habits
• initiating action
• Sustaining effort
• Acquiring skills

Question 31

What is thought stopping?

Answer 31

Involves concentrating on the undesired thought briefly and then using a cue or trigger to stop the thought and clear your mind.

Question 32

What is simulation training?

Answer 32

Where you simulate an actual competitive environment (same rule, crowd, pitch etc)

Question 33

What are cue words?

Answer 33

Used to trigger a particular response and are really a form of self talk.
They can be instructional, motivational or emotional.