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.

Two experiments examined the impact of attention on sensorimotor skills. In Experiment 1, experienced golfers putted under dual-task conditions designed to distract attention from putting and under skillfocused conditions that prompted attention to step-by-step putting performance. Dual-task condition putting was more accurate. In Experiment 2, right-footed novice and experienced soccer players dribbled through a slalom course under dual-task or skill-focused conditions. When using their dominant right foot, experts again performed better in the dual-task condition. However, when using their less proficient left foot, experts performed better in the skill-focused condition. Novices performed better under skill-focus regardless of foot. Whereas novices and the less-proficient performances of experts benefit from online attentional monitoring of step-by-step performance, high-level skill execution is harmed.

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In 3 experiments, the authors examined mathematical problem solving performance under pressure. In Experiment 1, pressure harmed performance on only unpracticed problems with heavy working memory demands. In Experiment 2, such high-demand problems were practiced until their answers were directly retrieved from memory. This eliminated choking under pressure. Experiment 3 dissociated practice on particular problems from practice on the solution algorithm by imposing a high-pressure test on problems practiced 1, 2, or 50 times each. Infrequently practiced high-demand problems were still performed poorly under pressure, whereas problems practiced 50 times each were not. These findings support distraction theories of choking in math, which contrasts with considerable evidence for explicit monitoring theories of choking in sensorimotor skills. This contrast suggests a skill taxonomy based on real-time control structures.

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These differences in attentional demands of performance readily lead to predictions concerning how situations that alter the deployment of cognitive resources-either by drawing attention toward execution or by taking attention away-will affect performance across skill levels.In two experiments, we manipulated deployment of attentional resources during on-line golf putting in an attempt to shed light on differences in control structures governing novice and expert sensorimotor skill execution. In Experiment 1, novice and expert golfers performed putts under skill-focused conditions intended to direct attention toward a component process of performance and also under dual-task conditions designed to draw attention away from execution via secondary task demands. If novices dedicate attention to controlling real-time execution, performance should be worse under dual-task than under skill-focused conditions, since nontask-related stimuli in the dual-task condition should occupy resources needed for primary skill execution (Nissen & Bullemer, 1987). Once a skill becomes well learned, however, attention should not be needed for step-by-step execution. Experts, then, may not be negatively affected by secondary task constraints (Allport, Antonis, & Reynolds, 1972). Yet attention prompted toward a componentprocess of well-learned performance may disrupt automated processes that normally run as uninterrupted routines.In Experiment 1, we found differences in the effect of attention as a function of skill level. Novice putting was more accurate under skill-focused than under dual-task attention conditions, but experts showed the opposite pattern. In Experiment 2, we pursued an implication of this conclusion-that any environment whose characteristics work to alter the attentionalresources available for on-line execution may have different effects on performance as 373Copyright 2004 Psychonomic Society, Inc.The authors thank John Bell, golf teaching professional, for his consultation on this project and his suggestion that expert golf putting accuracy may be enhanced by performance time constraints, and Allen R. In two experiments, we examined the attentional mechanisms governing sensorimotor skill execution across levels of expertise. In Experiment 1, novice and expert golfers took a series of putts under dual-task conditions designed to distract attention from putting and under skill-focused conditions that prompted attention to step-by-step performance. Novices performed better under skill-focused than under dual-task conditions. Experts showed the opposite pattern. In Experiment 2, novice and expert golfers putted under instructions that emphasized either putting accuracy or speed-the latter intended to reduce the time available to monitor and explicitly adjust execution parameters. Novices putted better under accuracy instructions. Experts were more accurate under speed instructions. In agreement with theories of skill acquisition and automaticity, novice performance is enhanced by conditions that allow for on-line attent...

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We investigated the encoding mechanisms involved in the perceptual recognition of words and pictures. Latencies in naming word and picture targets were analyzed as a function of several characteristics of a preceding prime, including whether it was a word or a picture, its duration of exposure, the interval between the prime and target onset, and whether or not the prime was consciously identified and reported by the subject. Results indicated that a common semantic code is available that can represent the meaning of either a word or a picture. This semantic representation, however, appears to be more easily activated by picture primes than by word primes and seems to benefit the naming of picture targets more than the naming of word targets. Despite the advantage for pictures with respect to semantic activation, overall processing in the naming task was slower and more attention demanding for pictures than for words. Comparison of our data with data on classification, in which an opposite pattern occurs (overall processing appears to be slower and more attention demanding for words than for pictures), suggests that, on the average, pictures have faster and more automatic access to their meanings than to their names but that words have faster and more automatic access to their names than to their meanings. This conclusion concerning the relative ability of stimuli to activate different kinds of internal representations has implications for a theory of the basis and development of automaticity.