Choking under pressure in tennis serve performance: An attentional demand explanation

Temporal distribution of attentional demands during a tennis serve

In the current research, the dual-task paradigm was used to examine the temporal distribution of attentional demands during a tennis serve. Twenty experienced tennis players to performed tennis serves. The participants were asked to respond verbally to an auditory tone presented at four probe positions (PPs) during tennis serves. The probe reaction time measure of attention was administered dur...

kinematic changes in tennis serve under competitive pressure

pressure refers to the feelings an athlete has about performing in a competitive situation. the primary aim of this study was to examine kinematic changes of tennis serves in increasing competitive pressure. 20 semi-professional right-handed male tennis players completed 120 serves under low (normal) and high competitive pressure phases. pressure checks (heart rate and perceived competitive sta...

the effect of attentional instruction on table tennis players' performance under pressure

the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of pressure andattentional instruction on table tennis players' performance. for this purpose, 16table tennis players were tested in 4 conditions with different attentionalinstructions and pressure conditions. the test included a table tennis task: the ballcolor signified the target where the ball had to be hit and the player had to p...

Is Choking under Pressure a Consequence of Skill-Focus or Increased Distractibility? Results from a Tennis Serve Task

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that athletes often choke in high pressure situations because anxiety can affect attention regulation and in turn performance. There are two competing theoretical approaches to explain the negative anxiety-performance relationship. According to skillfocus theories, anxious athletes’ attention is directed at how to execute the sport-specific movements which in...

Choking and Performance 1 Running Head: CHOKING AND EXCELLING Choking and Excelling Under Pressure

Decrements in performance on cognitive tasks resulting from pressure to perform (i.e., choking) are thought to be caused by interference with the ability to use explicit strategies (the distraction theory). This view suggests that pressure should improve tasks for which explicit strategies hamper performance. This hypothesis was tested by giving participants one of two nearly identical learning...

Understanding Skilled Performance: Memory, Attention, and Choking under Pressure