1. Chapter 7
Concentration:
Focus Under Pressure
By Clark Perry

2. Overview
From the mass of information our senses are bombarded with, how do we filter out what is vital to success from what is useless?
Understanding attention
Attention as
alertness,
a limited capacity, and
selectivity.
Enhancing attention for competition

3. Cues
At any given time, an athlete can focus on some of a very large number of stimuli.
Cues are the stimuli that guide attention, thought, and action. They can be
relevant (helpful to performance),
irrelevant (unhelpful to performance), or
noxious (harmful to performance).

4. The Attentional System

5. In the Zone
Aidan Moran called the attentional system the bridge between perception, cognition, and action.
Attention is a skill that can be developed through appropriate practice and instruction.
Athletes call the state they are in when they are totally focused the zone. Mastering the skill of being able to focus on relevant cues under pressure is a characteristic of elite athletes.

6. Key Components of Attentional Systems
Selectivity:
focused concentration
Time-sharing: coordination of skilled behavior
Regulation of alertness:
arousal control

7. Three Uses of the Term Attention
Alertness
Capacity
Selectivity
(Posner & Boies, 1971;
Abernethy, 2001.)

8. Attention As Alertness
Alertness depends on the athlete’s emotional state.
Anxiety, arousal, and visual attention are related (Janelle, 2002).
As anxiety increases, it can lead to
Attentional narrowing
Controlled processing
Inefficiencies in attentional allocation
Distraction by irrelevant or threatening cues

9. Attentional Narrowing
Width or breadth of attention is narrowed.
Important cues are missed.
Mistakes are made; attention may be directed to errors. A vicious cycle occurs.

10. Controlled Processing
Choking under pressure (Lewis & Linder, 1997).
Once a task becomes automated, it no longer requires conscious attention.
But as pressure increases, attention can shift from relevant cues to focus on control of performance. We say “choking” occurs.

11. Inefficiency of Attentional Allocation
High-level performers are exceptionally efficient at allocating attention.
As anxiety increases, response times to relevant cues increase.
(continued)

12. Inefficiency of Attentional Allocation (cont)
It may be possible to train athletes to enhance visual control to create more appropriate responses to attentional cues (e.g., “quiet eye”) (Vickers, n.d.).

13. Distraction
Anxiety can lead athletes to perceive cues as threatening and to focus on irrelevant cues.
Optimal level of arousal will help prevent distraction.

14. Attention As a Limited Capacity
Abernethy argues that an athlete’s processing capacity is fixed, but the athlete may choose to apportion it to different tasks.
Difficult tasks processed together have cumulative processing requirements.
When requirements exceed capacity, processing is incomplete or delayed.

15. Attention As Selectivity
Abernethy’s searchlight metaphor for attention involves three common errors:
Beam is too broad. Attention is not focused on essential elements for success of task.
Beam points in wrong direction. Attention is distracted by irrelevant information (example of golf).
Beam is too narrow or moves too slowly. Attention is not divided effectively among all necessary stimuli.

16. Distractions External distractions: Internal distractions: Noise
Gamesmanship
Weather
Playing conditions
Visual distractions
Open sports
Closed sports
Internal distractions:
Thoughts
Fears

17. Enhancing Attention for Competition
Research by Gabrielle Wulf and colleagues.
Performance was increased on tasks by focusing attention on the effects of the action.
Should athlete think about own movements or the movement of the racket head, club, or other equipment?
Focusing on immediate effects is more advantageous than focusing on resultant effects (flight of ball or where ball lands).

18. Flow and Attention
Csikszentmihalyi argues that we don’t help people get into flow by trying to create it.
Flow happens as a result of creating an environment that matches the skills of the athlete with the challenges of the task.
For focused concentration, athletes need skills, perceptual awareness, self-confidence, and emotional control.