Towards the Development of a Conceptual Model of Expertise in Cricket Batting: A Grounded Theory Approach

Data from semi-structured interviews with 14 male expert cricket batsmen, coaches, and administrators were used to generate a conceptual model of expertise in this sport. In the model, a favorable socio-developmental environment (support, vast investment in creative and challenging play, sibling rivalry) provides the essential foundation for the development of positive psychological attributes (mental toughness, self-belief and confidence, ability to cope with adversity, adoption of individualized routines/rituals), technical skill mastery (optimal balance, speed of downswing, versatility of shot execution) and superior visual-perceptual skill. Intrinsic motivators (fun, enjoyment, challenge and achievement, desire to be the best, “love of the game”, camaraderie) are regarded as essential to continuation and progression along developmental pathways. Facets of contemporary society and its constraints on free play emerged as one of the major limitations to the future development of expertise. The model has immediate implications for coaching practice, developmental policy, and future research approaches to identifying and nurturing sports talent.     

An implicit basis for the retention benefits of random practice

The cognitive effort explanations of contextual interference (CI) and implicit motor learning represent a paradox in which cognitive involvement is seen to be advantageous or disadvantageous for learning. The authors aimed to resolve this paradox by measuring cognitive effort and working memory dependence during low and high CI practice on two Australian Rules Football tasks (kicking and handball). Measures of cognitive effort included: kicking and handball outcome performance during acquisition and during a test of retention, performance on a probe reaction time task during a sample of acquisition trials, and self-reported levels of cognitive effort. Measures of implicit and explicit learning included kicking and handball performance during a secondary task transfer, and self-report verbal protocols (number of verbal rules and hypotheses reported). The results suggest that high CI may cause an implicit mode of learning, perhaps due to the interference caused by task switching. However, these findings are restricted to the more complex of the 2 tasks (kicking).     

Investigating the anticipatory nature of pattern perception in sport

The aim of the present study was to examine the anticipatory nature of pattern perception in sport by using static and moving basketball patterns across three different display types. Participants of differing skill levels were included in order to determine whether the effects would be moderated by the knowledge and experience of the observer in the same manner reported previously for simple images. The results from a pattern recognition task showed that both expert and recreational participants were more likely to anticipate the next likely state of a pattern when it was presented as a moving video, but only the experts appeared to have the depth of understanding required to elicit the same anticipatory encoding for patterns presented as schematic images. The results extend those reported in previous research and provide further evidence of an anticipatory encoding in pattern perception for images containing complex, interrelated patterns.     

The influence of task characteristics on younger and older adult motor overflow

This study investigated the influence of attentional and motor demands on motor overflow in 17 healthy young (18-35 years) and 17 older adults (60-80 years). Participants performed a finger pressing task by exerting either 33% or 66% of their maximal force output using their dominant or nondominant hand. Overflow was concurrently recorded in the passive hand. Attention was manipulated via a tactile stimulus presented to one or both hands for certain trials. Results showed that older adults exhibited greater overflow than young adults and that the effect of target force was exacerbated in older adults. Further, only older adult overflow was increased when tactile stimulation was directed to one or both hands. Increased overflow in older adults may result from bilateral cortical activation that is influenced by increased task demands. To perform comparatively to younger adults, older adults may compensate for age-related brain changes by recruiting an increased cortical network.     

The drug abuse-delinquency connection revisited

Ninety-one delinquent adolescents were interviewed with respect to their personal and family drug use and criminal behavior. No significant gender differences with respect to drug use were found. Females, however, committed more crimes against property than did males. The drug use-delinquency association was explored and findings indicated that subjects saw a stronger causal relationship between drug use and subsequent criminal behavior than was found in the current study or past research. A multifactorial association between drug abuse and delinquency behaviors as part of a spectrum of sociopathic personality development was supported.     

When the heat is on: romantic partner responses influence distress in socially anxious women

This study provided a preliminary test of whether socially anxious women and their partners would show more negative social support behavior, especially among those with low relationship satisfaction, and whether this would increase the distress of the socially anxious women. Women with (n=22) and without (n=23) heightened social anxiety were observed interacting with their partners under a social-evaluative threat and support behaviors were coded. Unexpectedly, no differences were found between socially and non-socially anxious women and their partners. Although relationship satisfaction influenced this process, it was the more satisfied women who showed more negative behavior. Additionally, the more positive behaviors the partner exhibited, the greater was the distress reported by socially anxious women, particularly among women whose partners reported high relationship satisfaction. Implications for how these findings might expand theories on interpersonal processes in social anxiety are discussed.     

How do world-class cricket batsmen anticipate a bowler's intention?

Four experiments are reported that examine the ability of cricket batsmen of different skill levels to pick up advance information to anticipate the type and length of balls bowled by swing and spin bowlers. The information available upon which to make the predictive judgements was manipulated through a combination of temporal occlusion of the display and selective occlusion or presentation of putative anticipatory cues. In addition to a capability to pick up advance information from the same cues used by intermediate and low-skilled players, highly skilled players demonstrated the additional, unique capability to pick up advance information from some specific early cues (especially bowling hand and arm cues) to which the less skilled players were not attuned. The acquisition of expert perceptual-motor skill appears to involve not only refinement of information extraction but also progression to the use of earlier, kinematically relevant sources of information.     

The expert advantage in dynamic pattern recall persists across both attended and unattended display elements

We examined how differences in attention influence how expert and novice basketball players encode into memory the specific structural information contained within patterns of play from their sport. Our participants were primed during a typical recall task to focus attention on either attacking or defending player formations before being asked to recall the attended or unattended portion of the pattern. Adherence to the instructional set was confirmed through an analysis of gaze distributions. Recall performance was superior for the experts relative to the novices across both the attended and unattended attacking and defensive pattern structures. Expert recall of attacker positions was unchanged with and without attention, whereas recall accuracy for the positions of defenders diminished without attention, as did the novices’ recall of both attack and defense formations. The findings suggest that experienced performers are better than novices at encoding the elements from a complex and dynamic pattern in the absence of focused attention, with this advantage being especially evident in relation to the recall of attacking structure. Some revision of long-term memory theories of expertise will be necessary to accommodate these findings.     

Automatic control of negative emotions: Evidence that structured practice increases the efficiency of emotion regulation

Emotion regulation (ER) is vital to everyday functioning. However, the effortful nature of many forms of ER may lead to regulation being inefficient and potentially ineffective. The present research examined whether structured practice could increase the efficiency of ER. During three training sessions, comprising a total of 150 training trials, participants were presented with negatively valenced images and asked either to “attend” (control condition) or “reappraise” (ER condition). A further group of participants did not participate in training but only completed follow-up measures. Practice increased the efficiency of ER as indexed by decreased time required to regulate emotions and increased heart rate variability (HRV). Furthermore, participants in the ER condition spontaneously regulated their negative emotions two weeks later and reported being more habitual in their use of ER. These findings indicate that structured practice can facilitate the automatic control of negative emotions and that these effects persist beyond training.     

Examining the development of attention and executive functions in children with a novel paradigm.

The development of attention and executive functions in normal children (7-12 years) was investigated using a novel selective reaching task, which involved reaching as rapidly as possible towards a target, while at times having to ignore a distractor. The information processing paradigm allowed the measurement of various distinct dimensions of behaviour within a single task. The largest improvements in vigilance, set-shifting, response inhibition, selective attention, and impulsive responding were observed to occur between the ages of 8 and 10, with a plateau in performance between 10 and 12 years of age. These findings, consistent with a step-wise model of development, coincide with the observed developmental spurt in frontal brain functions between 7 and 10 years of age, and indicate that attention and executive functions develop in parallel. This task appears to be a useful research tool in the assessment of attention and executive functions, within a single task. Thus it may have a role in determining which cognitive functions are most affected in different childhood disorders.