The effect of prohibiting the use of a preshot routine on free-throw shooting in competitive situations was investigated. 25 male high school basketball players were instructed to attempt 50 free throws alternating in blocks of 10 between the use of their preshot routine and shooting without it. To make the situation competitive, subjects were run in groups of five and their performance was recorded on a large easel placed to the side of the free-throw line. A significantly larger number of baskets were made in the preshot routine condition than without the routine. A competitive situation led to a greater decrement in baskets than had been reported in 1986 by Lobmeyer and Wassermen during noncompetitive free-throw shooting.
This study examined whether the home advantage exists in women's sports. The percentages of games won at home and away were compared for three varsity women's sports at the University of Southern Maine; basketball (1968–1985), field hockey (1967–1985), and softball (1975–1986). A significant home advantage was noted in basketball and in field hockey but not in softball. These results are partially consistent with the prediction that the home advantage would be present in women's sports.
Scores on the Sports Spectator Identification Scale gave a self-identification of how strongly a person is a fan of a team for 50 men, with a mean age of 24.2 yr., were negatively correlated with subjects' estimates of the number of calls that referees correctly made and positively correlated with the number of calls referees should have made correctly.
Six groups of Ss viewed briefly exposed arrays of letters, half designated high-valued and half low-valued. Immediately after each exposure Ss wrote down as many of the stimuli as they could remember. For three groups, the number of letters in each exposure was constant from trial to trial; for the remaining three groups, the number of letters in each exposure varied from trial to trial. This tested the hypothesis that load variability innuences the development of an efficient response strategy which,in turn, affects the processing of information stored in short-term memory. The data supported this hypothesis. Performance was sup'erior under the constant load condition due to the ability of these Ss to correctly report both high-and low-valued letters. Poor performance was observed under the variable load condition because of a decrease in the number of low valued letters correctly reported.
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