Performance psychology : perception, action, cognition, and emotion

341 Pages·2015·5.82 MB·English

by  Hoffmann

Performance Psychology
Perception, Action, Cognition, and Emotion
Edited by
Markus Raab
Babett Lobinger
Sven Hoffmann
Alexandra Pizzera
Sylvain Laborde
German Sport University Cologne
Institute of Psychology
Cologne, Germany
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Contributors
Eckart Altenmüller Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine,
Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany
Terry Clark Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of Music, London, UK
Rita de Oliveira School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, London, UK
Michael Falkenstein Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human
Factors (IfADo), Dortmund, Germany; Institute for Working, Learning and Aging
(ALA), Bochum, Germany
Edson Filho School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Lancashire, UK
Patrick D. Gajewski Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human
Factors (IfADo), Dortmund, Germany
Dieter Hackfort University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, Germany
Sven Hoffmann Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Christos I. Ioannou Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine,
Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany
Michael Kalicinski Institute of Physiology and Anatomy, German Sport University
Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Christian Kennel Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Sylvain Laborde Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University, Cologne, Germany; UFR STAPS, EA 4260, University
of Caen, Caen, France
Franziska Lautenbach Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of
Psychology, German Sport University, Cologne, Germany
Babett H. Lobinger Institute of Psychology, German Sport University Cologne,
Cologne, Germany
Emma Mosley Centre for Event and Sport Research, Bournemouth University, UK
Jürgen R. Nitsch Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Germany
Alexandra Pizzera Department of Performance Psychology, German Sport University
Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Institute of Sports and Sports Sciences, Heidelberg
University, Heidelberg, Germany
xiii
xiv Contributors
Markus Raab Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Daniel Schneider Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human
Factors, Dortmund, Germany
Vassilis Sevdalis Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Gloria B. Solomon Department of Kinesiology, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth,
TX, USA
Gershon Tenenbaum Department of Educational Psychology & Learning Systems,
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Monika Thomas Institute of Physiology and Anatomy, German Sport University
Cologne, Cologne, Germany
K. Werner Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Aaron Williamon Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of Music,
London, UK
Clemens Wöllner Institute of Systematic Musicology, University of Hamburg,
Hamburg, Germany
Preface
The scope of this book is to present a unique collective volume written by
experts, with the aims of (1) providing a scientific guide to the field of per-
formance psychology with a focus on research from multiple disciplines and
domains and (2) synthesizing these perspectives to form a foundation for future
theoretical, empirical, and applied developments.
WHAT IS PERFORMANCE PSYCHOLOGY?
Performance is everywhere, and the word is often used as an umbrella term
to describe the behavior of humans or animals or even larger entities, such as
a country or an organization. In the following pages, the focus is on human
performance in everyday life, often in relation to achieving specific goals, such
as winning a sports competition or performing in music or performance arts,
and on improving, stabilizing, or reestablishing performance after injury when
preparing for such events.
Individual performance, such as making a shot in soccer or pressing the keys
on a piano, can be studied in various disciplines and from many perspectives.
For instance, the soccer shot can be analyzed within medicine in terms of its
physiological or anatomical components, within mechanics in terms of kinetic
and kinematic parameters, within psychology in terms of mental imagery or
performance under pressure, or within sociology in terms of the societal impact
of the shot producing a goal. The perspective from which such a performance is
analyzed and what consequences are discussed naturally vary. In this book, we
use the discipline of psychology as a starting point to understand performance,
because for the majority of researchers who have contributed to this book, their
basic research interests are based on psychological concepts, which are applied
to sports, music, and other performance domains. We would like to stress that
nonpsychological factors such as the brain activity when monitoring errors are
also considered, as any complex performance will be better understood from an
exchange between disciplines.
Studying performance from a psychological perspective is valid in all
domains, including education, business, science, leisure, and many more,
because common to performance in any of them are specific psychological
building blocks required by individual and group performers alike. Here, we
have restricted ourselves to a limited number of high-performance domains, but
the evidence we report from sports, music, and the performing arts is relevant
xv
xvi Preface
beyond the individual domains. The chapters focus on a variety of topics and
cover both theoretical and applied research, making the book interesting for
scientists and practitioners.
WHAT COMPONENTS OF PERFORMANCE PSYCHOLOGY
ARE CONSIDERED?
Without a doubt, any complex performance can be described, explained,
improved, and maintained from a multitude of psychological perspectives, and
many subdisciplines of psychology have been dividing the work. For instance,
general psychology describes components of individual emotion, motivation,
perception, action, and cognition, and within cognition aspects such as memory,
problem solving, language processing, attention selection, and—without
exaggerating—hundreds more. Clinical psychology may be interested in these
factors if they are beyond normal functioning, and social psychology is inter-
ested in the influence of social dimensions. Many textbooks introduce these fac-
tors in isolation, but here we present pairs of factors that are linked in explaining
performance. For instance, to describe the soccer shot, we look at how visual
perception leads to a specific action, how a negative emotion can regulate
dysfunctional cognitive thoughts, and how a person’s own sensorimotor experi-
ences change the perception and cognitive judgments of a foul. For simplicity,
we refer to these factors—perception, action, cognition, and emotion—as core
capacities.
The empirical studies included in this book that addressed these core
capacities employed a variety of methods, including experimental, diagnostic,
and intervention approaches. Researchers have developed theories to explain
specific phenomena (e.g., Lobinger, Chapter 5, and Altenmüller & Ioannou,
Chapter 7 for music and sport examples), a paradigm and model to measure
performance more objectively (e.g., Tenenbaum & Filho, Chapter 3, and Hoffmann,
Chapter, 10), and a new experimental design that may detect as-yet unreported
factors (e.g., Lautenbach, Chapter 19, and Sevdalis & Wöllner, Chapter 14). In
applied research, researchers have explored both domain-specific phenomena
(e.g., Kalicinski, Thomas & Lobinger, Chapter 8) as well as phenomena that are
present in performances in all domains (e.g., Willemon & Clark, Chapter 4,
Mosley & Laborde, Chapter, 18), such as choking under pressure (e.g., Laborde,
Chapter 17, and Werner, Chapter 20). Experiments and specific diagnostics can
measure various aspects of observed or self-reported behavior at very different
levels of description (e.g., Solomon & Lobinger, Chapter 6, Kennel & Pizzera,
Chapter 15, and de Oliveira, Chapter 16). For instance, working memory can be
tested in a working span test in an experiment or by using an intelligence core
measure in a questionnaire or by measuring brain activation that is believed to
be associated with the use of working memory or by measuring hormonal trans-
mitters that are related to it, as well (e.g., Raab, Chapter 1, Nitsch & Hackfort,
Chapter 2, Hoffmann, Chapter 9, Pizzera, Chapter 13). Finally, in addition
Preface xvii
to presenting theoretical and applied research, we include several chapters
that demonstrate how the lessons learned can be applied in real environments
(see Chapter 1, Table 1).
HOW IS THE BOOK STRUCTURED?
The book is structured in five sections. Section A introduces the building blocks
of performance—that is, the core capacities of cognition, perception, action, and
emotion and their components (e.g., attention, memory, decision making)—that
are necessary to performance, as well as the theories, methods, and applica-
tions of performance research that are addressed in the subsequent sections.
Sections B through E investigate the links between the core capacities. Section
B explores the link between action and cognition, Section C between percep-
tion and cognition, Section D between perception and action, and Section E
between emotion and cognition. Throughout the book, chapters address these
interactions in a number of disciplines (e.g., behavioral science, neuroscience)
and domains (e.g., sports, music). A major advantage over domain-specific or
application-specific approaches is that the structure allows readers from various
backgrounds to integrate knowledge from multiple domains that is presented
in a continuum from basic and applied research to concrete practice. In sum,
20 chapters provide a scientific guide to performance psychology through an
exploration of the core capacities of perception, action, cognition, and emotion.
The nature of interdisciplinary research leads to summarizing and synthe-
sizing. Most research laboratories engage in a “fast-forward” method of con-
ducting empirical research and publishing, and there have been few attempts
to summarize the accumulated knowledge in book format. Quite often, signifi-
cant contributions of young researchers go unnoticed or are undervalued, due
to the large volume of research output and the ease of access to information
from the Internet. By promoting researchers and giving them a forum to express
their views, one can foresee the developments of the performance psychology
field in the future. We specifically invited young scholars to contribute to this
book, synthesizing their voices with those of more senior researchers to docu-
ment the present and future of performance psychology research. Our approach,
which included a weekend for discussions and feedback on drafts of most of the
chapters, produced a book that is a valid reference not only for the student or
researcher beginning or advancing an academic career but also for the practitio-
ner (e.g., the musician, the medical doctor, the manager, or the coach) and the
clinician (e.g., the sport psychologist, the music therapist).
This book is the culmination of the efforts of many people we would like to
thank. First and foremost are the members of the Department of Performance
Psychology at the Institute of Psychology at the German Sport University Cologne.
For editorial management and coordination Ellen Otte was very helpful in
setting and monitoring deadlines and providing feedback on format. At a 2-day
book retreat, Damian Jeraj, Christian Kennel, Sylvain Laborde, Franziska
xviii Preface
Lautenbach, Babett Lobinger, Lisa Musculus, Ellen Otte, Alexandra Pizzera,
Markus Raab, Vassilis Sevdalis, and Karsten Werner provided excellent discus-
sions. We would also like to thank others who reviewed beyond editors and
authors, including Ina-Marie Döring, Sebastian Heuer, Damian Jeraj, Oliver
Kapner, Kristin Katschak, Jonna Löffler, Lisa Musculus, and Helena Stettner.
Finally, thanks to Nikki Levy and Barbara Makinster at Elsevier for rapid,
quality feedback and support of this book.
We hope that you will enjoy our road to performance psychology that is
at the same time a tribute to our anniversary celebration of 50 years of perfor-
mance psychology at the German Sport University’s Institute of Psychology,
Cologne, Germany.
Markus Raab, Babett Lobinger, Sven Hoffmann,
Alexandra Pizzera, and Sylvain Laborde
Cologne, March 2015
Section A
What is Performance
Psychology?
1. The Building Blocks of 3. Measurement Considerations
Performance: An Overview in Performance Psychology
(Markus Raab) 3 (Gershon Tenenbaum and
2. Theoretical Framework of Edson Filho) 31
Performance Psychology: An 4. Applications within Performance
Action Theory Perspective (Jürgen Psychology (Terry Clark and
R. Nitsch and Dieter Hackfort) 11 Aaron Williamon) 45
Overview
Performance is often used as an umbrella term when we describe behavior
of humans or animals or even larger entities such as a country or an
organization. In the following, we are interested in human performance in
everyday life, often in relation to achieve specific goals such as winning
a competition in sports, music, or the arts, improving, stabilizing, or
re-establishing performance when preparing for such events that are
important and meaningful for a group or an individual.
Individual performance, such as the shot in soccer or the keys pressed
on a piano can be studied from various disciplines and perspectives. For
instance, the soccer shot may be analyzed within medicine on its physio-
logical or anatomical components, within mechanics on kinetic and kine-
matic, within psychology on the person’s mental imagery or performance
under pressure, within sociology on the societal impact of a potential goal
outcome the shot produced and much more. The perspective from which
such performance then is analyzed and what consequences are discussed
would naturally vary. In this book, we use psychology as a starting point
to understand performance because the majority of researchers merged
2 What is Performance Psychology?
in this volume use psychology as the discipline to drive their basic and
applied research interests that are transferred to various domains such as
sport, music, or other performance domains. However, we would like
to stress that non-psychological factors will be considered as well, as
any complex performance will be better understood from an exchange
between the disciplines. Section A will provide an introduction into the
field of performance psychology providing prerequisites (Chapter 1), theo-
ries (Chapter 2), methods (Chapter 3), and applications (Chapter 4).