Relationship between emotional state and performance during international field hockey matches

The present study examined the relationship between the emotions experienced by 15 international hockey players, both immediately before and during competition, and their performance levels. Data were collected on the players' emotional states using a revised version of the Feelings Scale of Butler, which was completed retrospectively after the match was played. Players reported more annoyance and less tension during the match than before. A logistic regression correctly classified 70.2% of players from the emotional ratings immediately before the match and 85.1% of the players from the ratings during the match as either a good or poor performer. Those individuals who performed well retrospectively reported feeling Nervous and 'Quick/Alert/Active' before the game and Confident and Relaxed during the game. The results indicate that emotions fluctuate over the competition period, and in long duration sports assessment of emotion during competition predicts variation in performance better than assessment prior to competition.     

The effect of behavioral skills training on shot performance in field hockey

Behavior analysis procedures have been used to improve sports performance and enhance player safety across a wide variety of sports. The current study evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training on three common field hockey shots, a slap shot, drive, and sweep for young field hockey players. The procedures were evaluated in a multiple baseline across behaviors for three players. Results showed increases in each type of shot once intervention was implemented.     

Individual differences in performance and learning of visual anticipation in expert field hockey goalkeepers

The study of anticipation in truly expert performers can provide insight into how they cope with extreme time constraints. The purpose of this dual-experiment paper was to investigate individual differences; in anticipation of the penalty corner drag-flick, its trainability, and transfer of improvement to field settings. Australian international and national male field-hockey goalkeepers participated. In experiment 1, international and national goalkeepers (n = 11) completed a penalty corner drag-flick temporal occlusion task that presented; defensive runner positioning at the penalty spot, drag-flicker kinematics, and ball flight. Results indicated seven goalkeepers integrated runner contextual and drag-flicker kinematic information to anticipate above chance. The cause of individual differences was independent pick-up of run and kinematic cues that presented greater opportunity to integrate sources for anticipation. In experiment 2, a sub-sample of goalkeepers participated and received temporal occlusion training or no training. Results indicated individualized improvement in anticipation across video, field, and competition assessments for those that received the intervention, but not controls. Improvements on video test were retained for six months. An individual differences approach can identify deficiencies in anticipation, which can be improved through perceptual training that transfers to motor responses. This contributes to theoretical and practical knowledge to develop anticipation skill.     

The use of positively-worded performance reminders to reduce warm-up decrement in the field hockey penalty shot

Abstract

The effect of performance reminders in reducing temporary posttest performance decrement, referred to as warm-up decrement (WUD), was examined. Advanced, male, held hockey players performed 21 baseline trials of the standard penalty shot and then rested for three 7-min periods, each of which was followed by 4 additional penalty shots. During the last 2 min of each rest period, control participants continued resting while participants in 2 other groups reviewed written checklists containing positively-worded (PR) performance reminders (e.g., “watch the ball”) or negatively-worded (NR) reminders (e.g., “don't rush the shot”). Diminished posttest performance accuracy and movement form (i.e., WUD) was found for the NR group and control group but not for the PR group. It was concluded that the review of positively-worded performance reminders may be an effective warming-up activity for certain types of discontinuous sport performance.     

Visual skills and playing positions of Olympic field hockey players

Many sports require fine spatiotemporal resolution for optimal performance. Previous studies have compared anticipatory skills and the decision-making process in athletes; however, there is little information on visual skills of elite athletes, particularly hockey players. To assess visual skills of Olympic hockey players and analyze differences by playing position, and to analyze improvement of visual skills after training, 21 Olympic field hockey players were pre- and post-tested on 11 visual tasks following a 10-wk. visual training program consisting of computer-based visual exercises. There were no mean differences at pre-test between players of different positions, suggesting that performance on these visual skills was independent of playing position. However, after training, an improvement was seen in all players (when scores were averaged across all 11 visual tasks) with goalkeepers improving significantly more than any other position. This suggests the possibility of improving visual skills even in an elite population.     

Contextual effects on activity profiles of domestic field hockey during competition and training

Game context is widely accepted to influence performance but most data available is ‘categorical’ and addresses performance rather than activity. This study assessed direct effects of opposition and team ranking in field hockey to establish influences on activity. One hundred and eight (n = 108) female field hockey players (age 16–39 years) participated, giving 186 competition and 48 training analyses. Team average distance (mean ± SD) observed in a mid-ranked team during competition ranged from 5949 ± 611 to 7719 ± 257 m demonstrating an opposition rank effect (Pearson’s r = .71; adjusted R² = .42). However, multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated a stronger relationship in lower ranked teams (Pearson’s r = .99; adjusted R² = .97 through 3–9). In contrast, no team rank effect was observed during randomly monitored competition where team average distance ranged from 5177 ± 444 to 7316 ± 241 m (Pearson’s r = .15 and adjusted R² = .12). In training, however, a team rank effect was observed in distance-related performance indicators where team average distance during small-sided games ranged from 5877 ± 188 to 3551 ± 193 m drill (per 70 min) with Pearson’s r = .95 and adjusted R² = .87. The presence of contextual effects has significant practical implications for team sports where the training load assumed from competition may be overestimated.     

Psycho-perceptual-motor skills are deemed critical to save the penalty corner in international field hockey

In interceptive sports such as field hockey goalkeeping, the psycho-perceptual-motor skill anticipation is vital for performance due to the extreme time constraints associated with saving a goal. The purpose of this study was to understand the beliefs and attitudes of international field hockey goalkeepers and coaches regarding anticipation of the drag-flick in penalty corners. Seven international goalkeepers and five international coaches were interviewed. Using a constructionist and relativist approach to reflexive thematic data analysis, we identified three overarching themes to anticipate the drag-flick, namely, pre-match video analysis, perception and action, and psychological factors. In the first theme, participants reported that pre-match video analysis allowed goalkeepers and coaches to identify the attacking capabilities of opposing teams. This analysis was used to inform defensive structure and save the drag-flick. In the second theme, participants reported that perception and action, which consisted of the pick-up of visual cues and movement execution, was important to anticipate the drag-flick. Goalkeepers reported that they rely heavily on ball flight, which was central in coaches’ approaches in training drills such as to use a projection machine that presents only ball flight information. The third theme, psychological factors, encompassed, psychological resilience, arousal regulation, leadership and communication, and sports intelligence, which were thought to be vital to facilitate anticipation of the drag-flick. The findings of this study have important implications for how to assess and train visual anticipation in time-constrained interceptive sports skills.     

Masculinity and hockey violence

Qualitative research on the relationship between masculinity and hockey violence has suggested that players endorsing traditional masculine behavior were more likely to engage in violence than players who held weaker masculine beliefs. Data were collected from white, middle class players on five Toronto hockey teams representing two different age groups (14.3 and 17.7 years respectively) and skill levels (Bantam and Junior A). Moderate support was found for the predicted relationship between higher masculinity and increased violence, particularly at the preprofessional Junior A level. Subscales of the Brannon Masculinity Scale, applied to a sport situation, were seen to be a valid measure of gender typing. Increased levels of violence (especially fist fights), more than playing or skating skills were seen to lead to greater perception of competence by both teammates and coaches.     

Immersion versus interactivity and analytic field

Losing oneself in a story, a film or a picture is nothing but another step in the suspension of disbelief that permits one to become immersed in the 'novel' of reality. It is not by chance that the text-world metaphor informs classical aesthetics that, more than anything else, emphasizes emotional involvement. On the contrary, as in much of modern art, self-reflexivity and metafictional attention to the rhetoric of the real, to the framework, to the conventions and to the processes of meaning production, all involve a disenchanted, detached and sceptic vision--in short, an aesthetics of the text as game. By analogy, any analytic style or model that aims to produce a transformative experience must satisfactorily resolve the conflict between immersion (the analyst's emotional participation and sticking to the dreamlike or fictional climate of the session, dreaming knowing it's a dream) and interactivity (for the most part, interpretation as an anti-immersive device that 'wakes' one from fiction and demystifies consciousness). In analytic field theory the setting can be defined--because of the weight given to performativity of language, to the sensory matrix of the transference and the transparency of the medium--the place where an ideal balance is sought between immersion and interaction.     

Demands and capacities versus demands and performance

This article examines the proposed relabeling of “capacities” as “performance” in the Demands and Capacities Model of stuttering in terms of four issues involving the model's demands component, theoretical versatility, genetic potential, and current clinical uses. Although the proposed changes should resolve the measurement issues of concern, it is suggested that this change may not be of sufficient value or significance for a Demands and Performance Model to supplant the Demands and Capacities Model.     

Automaticity versus timesharing in timing and tracking dual-task performance

Two experiments investigated the interfering effects of a manual tracking task on timing performance. Subjects generated a series of 5-s temporal productions under control (timing only) and experimental (timing + pursuit rotor tracking) conditions. Timing was more variable under experimental conditions, a finding consistent with attentional models which argue that timing tasks compete with concurrent distractor tasks for limited processing resources. A pretest-posttest paradigm was employed to evaluate the hypothesis that practice on the tracking task would lessen its attentional demands and thereby attenuate the interference effect. Experiment 1 involved single-task practice (tracking alone). Single-task practice leads to automaticity, the ability to perform a skilled task using fewer processing resources. Pretest-posttest comparisons showed that such practice reduced interference in timing. Experiment 2 involved dual-task practice (timing + tracking). Dual-task practice promotes the development of timesharing, the ability to efficiently switch attention between multiple tasks. In this case, practice failed to reduce the interference effect in timing. The results suggest that effective strategies for timing in dual-task situations must allow one to closely monitor the ongoing flow of temporal events. Received: 11 November 1996 / Accepted: 6 May 1997     

Parenting, achievement strategies and satisfaction in ice hockey

The aim of this study is to understand adolescent players' satisfaction as a function of parenting styles, players' achievement strategies, and their norm breaking behavior. Finnish 14- and 16-year-old ice-hockey players (n=1018) completed a questionnaire measuring their achievement strategies (SAQ; Nurmi, Salmela--Aro & Haavisto, 1995 b), as well as scales of norm breaking and satisfaction, prepared for the present study. The parents (n=979) filled in scales measuring their parenting styles (CRPR; Pulkkinen, 1996) and attitudes towards norm breaking. Results revealed that players from authoritative families who showed a high level of mastery-orientation expressed high satisfaction in playing ice hockey. Results also showed negative associations between authoritative parenting and both task irrelevant and norm breaking behavior. Parents with parental stress and those with authoritarian parenting styles showed positive attitudes to norm breaking behavior, and players from authoritarian and parental stress homes showed norm breaking behavior in ice hockey. There was no association between norm breaking behavior and player satisfaction. Our results contribute to the planning of a coaching system that serves more educational and developmental purposes, and that encourages the desire to play ice hockey as a hobby.     

Full versus divided attention and implicit memory performance

Effects of full and divided attention during study on explicit and implicit memory performance were investigated in two experiments. Study time was manipulated in a third experiment. Experiment 1 showed that both similar and dissociative effects can be found in the two kinds of memory test, depending on the difficulty of the concurrent tasks used in the divided-attention condition. In this experiment, however, standard implicit memory tests were used and contamination by explicit memory influences cannot be ruled out. Therefore, in Experiments 2 and 3 the process dissociation procedure was applied. Manipulations of attention during study and of study time clearly affected the controlled (explicit) memory component, but had no effect on the automatic (implicit) memory component. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Relationship of personalized jerseys and aggression in women's ice hockey

The present study examined the relationship between aggression and players' names on uniforms in collegiate women's ice hockey. Aggression was defined as mean penalty minutes per game. Information, i.e., win/loss record, penalties, and names on uniforms, about the 2002-2003 season women's ice hockey team was obtained via e-mail from 53 of 72 (74% return rate) sports information directors (Division I = 23, Division II = 2, Division III = 28). Analysis indicated that teams with personalized jerseys had significantly more penalty minutes per game than teams without personalized jerseys. However, as the majority of the teams with personalized jerseys were Division I teams and the majority of the teams without personalized jerseys were Division III teams, it is unclear whether results were due to personalized jersey or competition level of play.     

Re-examining the home disadvantage in professional ice hockey

Occurrence of the home disadvantage in professional ice hockey was examined by analyzing shootout data from 2005 through 2008. Results indicated that teams involved in shootouts playing at their home arenas did not lose significantly more games at home than on the road. Results did not support the hypotheses that emphasize the roles of physical contact and diffusion of responsibility in accounting for past failures to find the home disadvantage in professional ice hockey.     

Fluency versus conscious recollection in category-production performance: the performance of schizophrenic patients

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative contribution in schizophrenics of automatic processes (fluency) and conscious processes (conscious recollection) for the control of preencoded material in category production tasks. In one condition (Exclusion condition), subjects were told specifically not to produce previously presented words during the category-production task. This condition was compared with a standard category-production task in which subjects were told to produce the six first words that came to mind for a semantic category (Inclusion condition). In the inclusion condition, the effects of conscious control and automatic processes operated in the same direction, whereas in the exclusion condition automatic influences and conscious control were opposed. A recognition task followed the category-production tasks. Since the exclusion condition required conscious control of encoded items, we hypothesized that schizophrenic patients would be less able than control subjects to avoid producing study list items. These results indicated that schizophrenics' performance differed from these of control subjects in the exclusion condition but not in inclusion condition. Recognition performance was similar in both the schizophrenic and the control groups. These results suggest a defective conscious control in schizophrenic patients and confirm the data from the literature on explicit memory in these patients.