On the fragility of skilled performance: what governs choking under pressure?
Experiments 1-2 examined generic knowledge and episodic memories of putting in novice and expert golfers. Impoverished episodic recollection of specific putts among experts indicated that skilled putting is encoded in a procedural form that supports performance without the need for step-by-step attentional control. According to explicit monitoring theories of choking, such proceduralization makes putting vulnerable to decrements under pressure. Experiments 3-4 examined choking and the ability of training conditions to ameliorate it in putting and a nonproceduralized alphabet arithmetic skill analogous to mental arithmetic. Choking occurred in putting but not alphabet arithmetic. In putting, choking was unchanged by dual-task training but eliminated by self-consciousness training. These findings support explicit monitoring theories of choking and the popular but infrequently tested belief that attending to proceduralized skills hurts performance.
Beilock
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Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824, USA. beilocks@pilot.msu.edu
Carr
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D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*