Psychological, muscular and kinematic factors mediate performance under pressure

Abstract

It is well established that performance is influenced by pressure, but the underlying mechanisms of the pressure‐performance relationship are poorly understood. To address this important issue, the current experiment evaluated psychological, physiological, and kinematic factors as mediators of the pressure‐performance relationship. Psychological, physiological, and kinematic responses to three levels of competitive pressure were measured in 23 males and 35 females during a golf putting task. Pressure manipulations impaired putting performance. Self‐reported anxiety, effort, and perceived pressure were increased. Heart rate, heart rate variability, muscle activity, and lateral clubhead acceleration were also elevated. Mediation analyses revealed that effort, muscle activity, and lateral acceleration partially mediated the decline in performance. Results confirmed that pressure elicits effects on performance through multiple pathways.

Performance Optimization in Sport: A Psychophysiological Approach

“…Other authors have also considered HRV indices in relation to cognitive processes. Cooke and colleagues 22 observed how heart rate variability in LF increased under augmented pressure during golf putting. The authors attributed this result to the increase in respiratory volume under pressure.…”

“…This rhythm was also studied as a marker of resources allocation during motor programming 32 . Beta oscillation (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30),on the other hand, has a central position in the treatment of sensorimotor information and serves as a functional link between different brain regions such as the pre-motor, motor (M1), and somatosensory (S1) cortex, the supplementary motor area, and the cerebellum 31 . Beta oscillation could play the role of a motor "binding" linking the different commands related to a global gesture as suggested for sensory awareness 30 .…”

Quiet eye training promotes challenge appraisals and aids performance under elevated anxiety

“…For trials where the putt was holed, the experimenter recorded zero, and employed zero in the calculation of mean performance error (as Cooke, Kavussanu, McIntyre, & Ring, 2010).…”

Increased Corticospinal Excitability and Muscular Activity in a Lower Limb Reaction Task under Psychological Pressure

“…The significance level for all analyses was set at a p-value of less than .05. Tests to analyze state anxiety, mental effort, MEP, and EMG were all one-tailed, because many previous studies of upper limb movement have found that these variables increase under pressure [6,7,[10][11][12][13]. The tests for other variables were two-tailed.…”

“…In terms of EMG amplitude, we hypothesized that increases in EMG amplitudes for both SOL and TA as well as co-contraction between the muscles would be observed under pressure. These predictions are based on previous upper limb findings that multiple corticospinal and EMG activities involving agonist, antagonist, synergist, and those muscles not directly involved are facilitated under pressure [6,7,[10][11][12][13].…”