Anxiety, anticipation and contextual information: A test of attentional control theory

Technical and tactical skills related to performance levels in tennis: A systematic review

“…This finding is supported by those of a soccer study, which showed that advanced players' predictions of the directions of penalty kicks were more accurate than those of novices (Savelsbergh, Williams, Kamp, & Ward, 2002). Advanced players use more selective visual search patterns than do novices, as reflected by the higher response accuracy in anticipatory tasks reported in several studies (Balser et al, 2014;Buckolz et al, 1988;Cocks et al, 2016;Farrow & Abernethy, 2003;Goulet et al, 1989;Jackson & Mogan, 2007;Loffing & Hagemann, 2014;Loffing et al, 2011;Murphy et al, 2016;Rowe et al, 2009;Shim, Carlton, et al, 2005, Shim, Miller, et al, 2005Singer et al, 1996;Smeeton & Huys, 2011;Tenenbaum et al, 1996Tenenbaum et al, , 2000Williams et al, 2009). Moreover, Farrow and Reid (2012) showed that the anticipatory capability of players is also dependent on age, with older players demonstrating more advanced anticipatory skills than younger players.…”

“…Verbal reports were used to examine visual information processing Jackson & Mogan, 2007;Murphy et al, 2016;Smeeton & Huys, 2011;Williams, Huys, Cañal-Bruland, & Hagemann, 2009;Williams et al, 2002). Six out of the nine studies revealed differences between professionals and advanced players, advanced players and intermediate players or intermediate players and novices (Buckolz, Prapavesis, & Fairs, 1988;Cañal-Bruland et al, 2011;Cocks et al, 2016;Murphy et al, 2016;Smeeton & Huys, 2011;Williams et al, 2009), whereas three studies did not find any differences between players whose performance levels differed (Farrow et al, 2005;Jackson & Mogan, 2007;Williams et al, 2002). One study revealed differences between advanced and intermediate players in their movement-based responses but not in their verbal responses (Farrow & Abernethy, 2003).…”

Effects of anxiety on anticipation and visual search in dynamic, time-constrained situations.

“…Thus, greater levels of anxiety appear to have had a negative effect on higher level cognitive function, particularly in relation to the ability to recognize familiarity and structure in the evolving patterns of play across task constraints. This latter finding is important because the differential effect of anxiety on how the various perceptual-cognitive skills interact has recently been documented in the literature in a study by Cocks et al (2015). The underlying assumption is that a number of different and/or additional constraints affect how influential different perceptual-cognitive skills are at any given moment when making anticipation judgments.…”

“…The authors argue that a higher reliance on top-down strategies would be beneficial to prevent decrements in performance efficiency. In another study by Cocks, Jackson, Bishop, and Williams (2015), the use of topdown strategies, more specifically the use of contextual information, has been found to be impaired under high-anxiety conditions in skilled but not in less-skilled players when making lateral judgments of tennis shots. The authors concluded that the ability of skilled players to incorporate contextual information, and thereby their expertise advantage, is reduced by anxiety.…”

Expertise and the Interaction between Different Perceptual-Cognitive Skills: Implications for Testing and Training

“…A proposal is that several additional factors and constraints like emotions and specific context influence how important different perceptual-cognitive skills are at any given moment when anticipating or making decisions. Cocks et al ( 2015 ) examined the involvement of high- (e.g., situational probabilities) and low-level cognitive processes (e.g., postural cue usage) during a dynamic, time-constrained tennis anticipation task and how their importance may interact with anxiety. Anxiety had an impact on the ability of skilled performers to use situation-specific probabilistic information, suggesting that anxiety may have impacted more greatly on the processing of high-level cognitive processes rather than the pick-up of low-level biological motion information from an opponent during anticipation.…”