Athletes' perceptions of how cognitive interference during competition influences concentration and effort

Abstract

This paper investigates athletes' perception of the relationship between cognitive interference and its effects on concentration and effort during sport performance. The sample consisted of 115 volleyball players that took part in a national university tournament. Three different kinds of thoughts were investigated: ‘performance worries’, ‘situation-irrelevant thoughts’, and ‘thoughts of escape’. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships. All kinds of thoughts were reported to be detrimental to concentration, whereas different patterns of associations emerged between different thoughts and subsequent effort. ‘Performance worries’ were reported to be related to increases in effort for athletes holding higher goal attainment expectancies and decreases in effort for athletes holding lower goal attainment expectancies. ‘Thoughts of escape’ were reported to be related to decreases in effort, while no significant relation between ‘situation irrelevant thoughts’ and effort emerged. Results stress the importance of further examining the role of interfering thoughts athletes experience during competition.     

Efficacy of a Brief Relaxation Training Intervention for Pediatric Recurrent Abdominal Pain

This study is a preliminary investigation of the efficacy of a brief intervention for recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) via a multiple baseline across subjects design. The intervention consisted of a single 1-hour session including psychoeducation and coaching of breathing retraining; the length, duration, and content of the intervention were designed with a goal of maximum portability to primary-care settings. Five children with recurrent abdominal pain participated in this study, 1 of whom served as a pilot participant. Children received the intervention at 1-week intervals. Parent and child reports of each child's abdominal pain, general somatic complaints, functional disability, and anxiety were collected throughout the study. All children participated in a 3-month follow-up session. Results indicated that this brief intervention was successful in lessening abdominal pain, as demonstrated by decreased Abdominal Pain Index (API) scores in two children and decreased abdominal pain following breathing retraining practice in all children. The intervention was also successful in decreasing some children's general somatic symptoms. Functional disability and anxiety symptoms remained consistent for all children throughout the study, which may be due to low levels of these symptoms pretreatment. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Males' Reactions to Participating in Research on Dating Violence Victimization and Childhood Abuse

Childhood abuse and dating violence victimization are prevalent and devastating problems. Although there has been an abundance of research on these topics in recent years, researchers and institutional review boards often struggle with determining whether asking respondents questions on previous violence will result in increased emotional distress or other negative research outcomes. Empirical data are therefore needed that examine the research reactions of individuals who participate in research on childhood abuse and dating violence. This study examined this topic among a sample of male college students (N?=?193). Results showed that victims of childhood sexual abuse had more negative emotional reactions and victims of physical dating violence had more negative perceived drawbacks to research participation than nonvictims. However, victims and nonvictims did not differ on positive research reactions. These findings suggest that there are few differences between victims and nonvictims on research reactions.     

Drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in men: The role of set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence

Set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence are information-processing biases associated with thinness-oriented eating and body image pathology in women. However, little is known about the relationship between these processing biases and muscularity-oriented eating and body image pathology. We investigated whether set shifting and central coherence were uniquely related to the drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in a sample of 91 male undergraduates. Participants completed the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, the Matching Familiar Figures Task, the Drive for Muscularity scale, and a modified Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire. Results indicated that set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence were both uniquely positively associated with the drive for muscularity, and that set shifting difficulties were uniquely positively associated with muscularity-oriented disordered eating. Results are discussed with regard to the male experience of body image and eating pathology, and in regard to muscle dysmorphia.     

Electroencephalographic registration of low concentrations of isoamyl acetate

Previous research has demonstrated electroencephalogram (EEG) changes in response to low-odor concentrations, resulting in near-chance detection. Such findings have been taken as evidence for olfaction without awareness. We replicated and extended previous work by examining EEG responses to water-water control, 0.0001, 0. 001, 0.01, and 1 ppm isoamyl acetate (IAA) in water paired with water only. Detection was above chance (>50%) for.001 and above, and alpha decreased only to those concentrations, suggesting that EEG changes corresponded to IAA awareness. However, when correct trial EEGs were compared to incorrect trial EEGs during.001 ppm, right posterior/central alpha decreased during incorrect trials and alpha decreased more globally (including frontal sites) during correct trials. These data may not reflect awareness or unawareness per se. Instead, results are discussed regarding activation of perceptual systems in the posterior region during incorrect trials and the activation of frontal action systems during a subset of correct trials.     

Vividness of visual imagery and source memory for audio and text

Two groups of high and low vivid imagers heard an audiotape of a crime, read an account of it with both correct and new information, then took recognition and source memory tests. While listening and reading, both groups were told to attend carefully, but one was also instructed to form visual images of the scene. Recognition memory accuracy was greater for material from the text only than from the audio only, whereas source memory accuracy was greater for audio than for text. For source memory of text, high imagers performed more poorly than low imagers under imagery instructions. These results replicate previous work and extend it from an initial film source to an audio source. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of message framing on behavioral prevalence assumptions

Based on attribution theory and the logic of conversational norms, we predicted that image‐based health communications can alter prevalence estimates for health behaviors. In two studies, participants were exposed either to a positively‐framed or negatively‐framed communication advocating for specific health behaviors. As predicted, participants who read a health communication rated healthy behaviors as less common when positive attributes were associated with healthy choices than when negative attributes were associated with unhealthy choices. The second study revealed that this pattern was most pronounced among participants who reported initial uncertainty about behavioral norms. These findings suggest that positively‐framed influence attempts can promote prevalence assumptions that work against the influence attempt. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.