1. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills DECISION MAKING AND WORKING MEMORY

2. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Learning objectives understand what is meant by decision making during skilled performance understand the importance of decision making in skilled performance understand the role of working memory in decision making have a basic knowledge of the functional brain regions involved in working memory and decision making have a basic understanding of theories of cognitive development which affect working memory and decision making have a knowledge of the limitations on working memory and decision making during development understand some of the problems of carrying out research into decision making have a knowledge of research results

3. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Decision making Knowing WHAT to do Knowing WHEN to do it Knowing WHERE to do it Knowing which technique to use in any given situation (Knapp, 1963)

4. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills A typical decision making situation from a basketball game. Does the player in possession of the ball pass or drive for the basket?

5. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Working memory An interactive workspace (Baddeley, 1986) Responsible for: problem solving decision making explicit learning

6. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Working memory Consists of: perception of present display held in STM similar past experiences recalled from LTM PerceptionDecision STM LTM Input WORKING MEMORY

7. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills CENTRAL EXECUTIVE Subdivisions of working memory VISUOSPATIAL SKETCHPAD PHONOLOGICAL LOOP encoding of acoustic and verbal information encoding of visual and visuospatial information oversees and controls the whole process.

8. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Central executive functionSporting example Shifting between tasks or mental sets Players switching attention from defence to attack when ball possession is won, but also reverting back to a defensive set if possession is lost. Updating and monitoring working memory representations A defender recalling what the attackers did in a similar situation previously but also being aware of differences between that situation and the present display Inhibition of prepotent responses A defender refusing to respond to a fake or dummy by an attacker PlanningAltering tactics to suit the situation Coordination of multiple tasks An attacker in a ball game controlling the ball while simultaneously making decisions Selecting relevant sensory information Gymnasts and divers being able to attach the correct weighting to visual, vestibular and proprioceptive information CENTRAL EXECUTIVE TASKS IN SPORT

9. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Long-term working memory (Ericsson and Kintsch, 1995) Practice leads to formation of LTWM LTWM holds representation of situation plus response Known as a situation-response interaction Perception of the situation and retrieval of the answer are simultaneous and automatic

10. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX SMA PMC SOMATOSENSORY ASSOCIATION AREA VISUAL CORTEX VISUAL ASSOCIATION AREA CEREBELLUM AUDITORY CORTEX AUDITORY ASSOCIATION AREA PREFRONTAL CORTEX DLPFC a Main region of the brain involved in working memory is the prefrontal cortex especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Anterior cingulate cortex also plays a major role. ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX THALAMUS BRAINSTEM SPINAL CORD

11. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Dynamic systems theory and goal achievement We search the environment for affordances, i.e. what the environment allows us to do The player will automatically react when the opportunity to achieve the goal presents itself Known as realization of the affordance What we are afforded depends on constraints Task Environmental Organismic

12. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Constraints Examples of constraints Task Rules of the game Whether you are in possession of the ball or not Environmental Weather Type of playing surface Organismic Your and/or opponents Height Weight Power

13. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Cognitive development Cognitive development affects decision making in sport It also affects working memory performance in all walks of life

14. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Developmental theories: Piaget A stage or phase theory Sensorimotor phase (birth to 2 years) Preoperational thought phase (2-7 years) Child is interested in ‘why’ and ‘how’ things occur Can handle simple one v one type tasks Concrete operations phase (7-11 years) Can respond to what the present environment affords Can understand defensive duties such as marking an opponent Formal operations phase (11 years onward) Has a systematic approach to problem solving Can utilize cognitive restructuring skills, e.g. use of decoy runs

15. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Developmental theories: mental space (Pascual-Leone, 1970) Everyone has a basic structural mental capacity i.e. the number of distinct schemes that are available to the person By 3 years the child has developed a basic mental capacity, called ‘e’ Every 2years, until about 15 years, the child adds one more scheme to his/her initial e We also possess functional mental capacity i.e. the amount of structural capacity that the person is able to utilize at any given time Field independent children utilize a greater amount of structural capacity than do field dependent children

16. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Ecological psychology approaches There are no specific stages Interaction with environment determines how advanced we will be However, we do depend on genetic potentials

17. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Genetic potentials (Bronfenbrenner, 1989) Genetic potentials determine strengths and weaknesses Actualized genetic potentials are the amount of genetic potential that the individual is actually using at that given time. Non-actualized genetic potential is the amount of ability not being utilized The actualized/non-actualized genetic potential interaction is dependent on the environment

18. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Research design issues in decision making Use of non-ecologically valid tests e.g. use of slides of typical game situations, using a tachistoscopic timing device Use of pencil and paper tests Use of verbal responses rather than motor responses Use of video tests has some potential

19. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Research results Experts make faster decisions than novices and intermediate level players Experts are generally, though not always, more accurate than novices and intermediate performers Older children do better than the younger ones but expertise, as measured by experience, is often more important than age Eye-mark recorder research shows that experts and novices use different search patterns and fixations.

20. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskillswww.wiley.com/go/mcmorris/acquisitionsportsskills Summary Decision making refers to deciding what action to take in any given situation. According to information processing theory it a working memory task It depends on the comparison of information held in STM, concerning the present situation, with past experience of similar situations, recalled from LTM According to ecological psychology, decision making is dependent on the affordances which the environment presents and the person being attuned to those affordances