Maintain your mind, maintain your focus: Effects of focused attention and intensity in experienced runners.

The intensity that people choose for their endurance activities has a major influence on their affective experience. Furthermore, the direction of attention (e.g., internal or external) during endurance activities may significantly influence performance and personal perceptions. Therefore, in the current study, we focus on the interaction between intensity and attentional focus. We aim to address the question of whether adopting an internal (IAF; breathing) or an external attentional focus (EAF; environment), compared to a control condition, leads in differences in speed, heart rate, and affect during running at different intensities in experienced runners. Data from 59 participants were analyzed (Mage: 26.95 (SD = 4.78) years; 34 male; 25 female). Participants ran 9 × 3 min in an outdoor park with three intensity conditions (light, somewhat hard, hard) and three attention conditions (internal, external, control). Intensity, but not attentional focus, impacted affective responses. Results revealed a significant interaction between attentional focus and intensity on heart rate (p < 0.001, ω2p = 0.199): during the somewhat hard intensity, the control focus condition was significantly lower compared the internal and external attentional focus conditions. Additionally, we used exploratory multilevel models (MLM). In the best-fitting MLM of heart rate, 45% of the variance is attributed to differences between athletes, and thus 55% of the variance within athletes. Furthermore, the model indicated that athletes running at a somewhat hard intensity and maintaining an EAF (b = 7.69) or IAF (b = 6.36) had an increase in heart rate compared to the control condition. We speculate that simultaneously monitoring effort and following an attentional instruction was such a difficult task that led to a favorable effect for the control condition. In practice, this could mean that the implementation of an unfamiliar focus of attention, for example, initially requires additional energy expenditure.

Don't stop focusing when it gets harder! The positive effects of focused attention on affective experience at high intensities.

Experiencing negative affect during exercise partially explains high levels of physical inactivity. An important direction for research is to better understand how and why interindividual differences in affective experiences occur while exercising. The dual-mode theory suggests that the interaction of cognitive processes and interoceptive cues influence the affective response. Hence, attentional control in form of adopting an external or internal attentional focus could lead to different affective responses depending on intensity. This study examines possible interactions between self-selected running intensities and attentional focus on affect. Fifty-eight inexperienced runners (30.14 ± 9.19 years; 38% female) ran 9 × 3 min outdoors around a large pond. While running at three intensities, they were instructed to focus on their breathing, on the environment, or did not receive an instruction. Dependent measures were affect, heart rate, and speed. The results revealed a significant interaction between attentional focus and intensity on affect (p = .01, η2p = .08). At subjectively perceived light intensity, participants' affective outcomes benefit from non-focusing attention, whereas during hard intensity the opposite seems helpful: to focus on breathing or to the environment. These findings shed new light on the interaction of focusing attention and running intensity to improve the affective experience.

Varying Degrees of Perception-Action Coupling and Anticipation in Handball Goalkeeping.

Anticipation in sports is commonly investigated using perception-action uncoupled methods, thus raising questions regarding transferability of findings to the field. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of different degrees of perception-action coupling on anticipation in handball goalkeeping. Advanced, intermediate and novice handball goalkeepers watched videos of throws on the goal and were asked to anticipate throw direction via key press (perception-action artificial condition) and via natural movement response (perception-action simulated condition). Results reveal overall superior performance in the artificial compared to the simulated condition. Skill-based differences, however, were descriptively more pronounced in the simulated condition compared to the artificial condition. The findings further highlight the importance of more representative research methods to unravel perceptual-cognitive skill in sports.

To Run or Not to Run? Automatic Evaluations and Reflective Attitudes Toward Exercise.

Using an evaluative priming procedure, this study tested whether automatic evaluations of running differ among groups based on their amount of exercise and whether they were runners or not. Ninety-five participants (26 ± 5.06 years; 46% female) were divided into five groups: an inactive group, active exercisers, highly active exercisers, active runners, and highly active runners. A priming effect score was calculated based on the concept of response facilitation or inhibition: the reaction is faster when the target and prime are valence congruent and becomes slower if they are incongruent. The highly active runner group differed significantly from the inactive group (p < .01) and from the active exerciser group (p < .05). Furthermore, reflective evaluations were measured via questionnaires. The results show that priming effect scores can detect automatic evaluations of running, and they differ not only because of the amounts of physical exercise but also because of their preferred type of exercise.

Motor competence is not enough: Handedness does not facilitate visual anticipation of same-handed action outcome.

Visual understanding of others performing an action depends on both an observer's visual and motor experience with that action. With regard to visual anticipation of lateralized action outcome in one-on-one confrontative situations, however, the particular role of motor experience is poorly understood. Here, we considered handedness to test the laterality-specific contribution of visual and motor experience to action outcome anticipation. In two experiments, 55 left- and 114 right-handed handball players predicted the outcome (Exp. 1: throw direction; Exp. 2: type of throw) of videos showing left- and right-handed penalty-throws viewed from a goalkeeper's perspective. Analyses reveal that left- and right-handed participants performed similarly and had more difficulties anticipating the outcome direction, but not type of throw, of left- compared to right-handed penalties. Thus, albeit left- and right-handers differ in their lateralized motor experience, this does not seem to be sufficient to facilitate visual anticipation of same-handed action outcome. Instead, findings lend further support to the specificity of perceptual learning and visual experience arising from both left- and right-handers' predominant exposure to more common right-handed movements.

Directionality in Aesthetic Judgments and Performance Evaluation: Sport Judges and Laypeople Compared.

Left-to-right readers are assumed to demonstrate a left-to-right bias in aesthetic preferences and performance evaluation. Here we tested the hypothesis that such bias occurs in left-to-right reading laypeople and gymnastic judges (n = 48 each) when asked to select the more beautiful image from a picture pair showing gymnastic or non-gymnastic actions (Experiment 1) and to evaluate videos of gymnasts' balance beam performances (Experiment 2). Overall, laypeople demonstrated a stronger left-to-right bias than judges. Unlike judges, laypeople rated images with left-to-right trajectory as more beautiful than content-wise identical images with right-to-left trajectory (Experiment 1). Also, laypeople tended to award slightly more points to videos showing left-to-right as opposed to right-to-left oriented actions (Experiment 2); however, in contrast to initial predictions the effect was weak and statistically unreliable. Collectively, judges, when considered as a group, seem less prone to directional bias than laypeople, thus tentatively suggesting that directionality may be an issue for unskilled but not for skilled judging. Possible mechanisms underlying the skill effect in Experiment 1 and the absence of clear bias in Experiment 2 are discussed alongside propositions for a broadening of perspectives in future research.

Further Evidence for an External Focus of Attention in Running: Looking at Specific Focus Instructions and Individual Differences.

Although attentional focusing in sports has been broadly investigated, the findings vary when it comes to endurance sports. This study provides a comparison between relevant foci in the literature of running economy. These include two internal foci-one addressing automated processes (running movement) and the other nonautomated processes (internal body signals and perceived exertion), an external focus (video) and a control condition. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of interoceptive sensitivity on oxygen consumption within the different attention conditions. Thirty recreational runners performed a four 6-min run at moderate intensity consisting of the four counterbalanced conditions. Running economy was assessed by spiroergometry, and interoception was measured using a heartbeat tracking task. Results revealed a significantly better running economy for the external focus of attention compared with all other conditions. No significant correlations were observed between the heartbeat perception score and oxygen consumption in any condition.

Emotionality of Colors: An Implicit Link between Red and Dominance.

The color red has been shown to alter emotions, physiology, psychology, and behavior. Research has suggested that these alterations could possibly be due to a link between red and perceived dominance. In this study we examined if the color red is implicitly associated to the concept of dominance. In addition, we similarly hypothesized that blue is implicitly linked to rest. A modified Stroop word evaluation task was used in which 30 participants (23.07 ± 4.42 years) were asked to classify words shown in either red, blue, or gray (control condition), as being either dominant- or rest-related. The responses were recorded and analyzed for latency time and accuracy. The results revealed a significant word type × color interaction effect for both latency times, F(2,56) = 5.09, p = 0.009, [Formula: see text] = 0.15, and accuracy, F(1.614,45.193) = 8.57, p = 0.001, [Formula: see text] = 0.23. On average participants showed significantly shorter latency times and made less errors when categorizing dominance words shown in red, compared to blue and gray. The measured effects show strong evidence for an implicit red-dominance association and a partial red-rest disassociation. It is discussed that this association can possibly affect emotionality, with the presentation of red eliciting a dominant emotional and behavioral response.

Accuracy of Outcome Anticipation, But Not Gaze Behavior, Differs Against Left- and Right-Handed Penalties in Team-Handball Goalkeeping.

Low perceptual familiarity with relatively rarer left-handed as opposed to more common right-handed individuals may result in athletes' poorer ability to anticipate the former's action intentions. Part of such left-right asymmetry in visual anticipation could be due to an inefficient gaze strategy during confrontation with left-handed individuals. To exemplify, observers may not mirror their gaze when viewing left- vs. right-handed actions but preferentially fixate on an opponent's right body side, irrespective of an opponent's handedness, owing to the predominant exposure to right-handed actions. So far empirical verification of such assumption, however, is lacking. Here we report on an experiment where team-handball goalkeepers' and non-goalkeepers' gaze behavior was recorded while they predicted throw direction of left- and right-handed 7-m penalties shown as videos on a computer monitor. As expected, goalkeepers were considerably more accurate than non-goalkeepers and prediction was better against right- than left-handed penalties. However, there was no indication of differences in gaze measures (i.e., number of fixations, overall and final fixation duration, time-course of horizontal or vertical fixation deviation) as a function of skill group or the penalty-takers' handedness. Findings suggest that inferior anticipation of left-handed compared to right-handed individuals' action intentions may not be associated with misalignment in gaze behavior. Rather, albeit looking similarly, accuracy differences could be due to observers' differential ability of picking up and interpreting the visual information provided by left- vs. right-handed movements.

Pattern-induced expectation bias in visual anticipation of action outcomes.

When anticipating an opponent's action intention, athletes may rely on both kinematic and contextual cues. Here we show that patterns of previous action outcomes (i.e., a contextual cue) bias visual anticipation of action outcome in subsequent trials. In two video-based experiments, skilled players and novices were presented with volleyball attacks stopping 360ms (Exp. 1) or 280ms (Exp. 2) before an attacker's hand-ball-contact and they were asked to predict the type of attack (smash or lob). Attacks were presented block-wise with six attacks per block. The fifth trial served as target trial where we presented identical attacks to control kinematic cues. We varied the outcomes of the preceding four attacks under three conditions: lobs only, smashes only or an alternating pattern of attack outcomes. In Exp. 1, skilled players but not novices were less accurate and responded later in target trials that were incongruent vs. congruent with preceding patterns. In Exp. 2, where the task was easier, another group of novices demonstrated a similar congruence effect for accuracy but not response time. Collectively, findings indicate that participants tended to preferentially expect the continuation of an attack pattern, while possibly attaching less importance to kinematic cues. Thus, overreliance on pattern continuation may be detrimental to anticipation in situations an action's outcome does not correspond to the pattern. From a methodological viewpoint, comparison of novices' performance in Exp. 1 and 2 suggests that task difficulty may be critical as to whether contextual cue effects can be identified in novices.

Skilled players' and novices' difficulty anticipating left- vs. right-handed opponents' action intentions varies across different points in time.

A left-handers' performance advantage in interactive sports is assumed to result from their relative rarity compared to right-handers. Part of this advantage may be explained by athletes facing difficulties anticipating left-handers' action intentions, particularly when anticipation is based on kinematic cues available at an early stage of an opponent's movement. Here we tested whether the type of volleyball attack is predicted better against right- vs. left-handed opponents' movements and whether such handedness effects are evident at earlier time points in skilled players than novices. In a video-based experiment volleyball players and novices predicted the type of shot (i.e., smash vs. lob) of left- and right-handed volleyball attacks occluded at six different time points. Overall, right-handed attacks were better anticipated than left-handed attacks, volleyball players outperformed novices, and performance improved in later occlusion conditions. Moreover, in skilled players the handedness effect was most pronounced when attacks were occluded 480 ms prior to hand-ball-contact, whereas in novices it was most evident 240 ms prior to hand-ball-contact. Our findings provide further evidence of the effect of an opponent's handedness on action outcome anticipation and suggest that its occurrence in the course of an opponent's unfolding action likely depends on an observers' domain-specific skill.

Pushing through evolution? Incidence and fight records of left-oriented fighters in professional boxing history.

The fighting hypothesis proposes that left-oriented athletes enjoy a negative frequency-dependent advantage in combat sports such as boxing. Supporting evidence, however, is restricted to cross-sectional frequency data from small samples. Here, we examined the incidence and fight records of 2,403 left- and right-oriented fighters who were listed in the annual ratings of professional boxing from 1924 to 2012. Unexpectedly, left-oriented boxers were overrepresented in no more than 7 of the 89 years considered, their percentages varied up to 30% and increased over the entire period, and frequencies varied substantially between weight divisions. In support of the fighting hypothesis, lose-win ratios indicated larger fighting strength in left- compared to right-oriented boxers, which, however, was not reflected in different proportions of wins and losses by knockout. Our findings are partly consistent with an assumed left-oriented fighters' advantage in combat sports. Such advantage could be explained by negative frequency-dependent selection mechanisms; however, our study also revealed potential limits of the fighting hypothesis such that alternative explanations cannot be fully excluded. We propose that interference by factors not related to performance could also limit the suitability of data from elite sporting competition for testing evolutionary models of human handedness.

Cognitive fatigue effects on physical performance during running.

This study investigated the effect of cognitive fatigue on physical performance in a paced running task. Experienced runners (n = 20) performed two 3,000-m runs on an indoor track, once after cognitive fatigue, and once under nonfatigued conditions. Completion times were significantly slower in the cognitive fatigue condition (M = 12:11,88 min, SD = 0:54,26), compared with the control condition (M = 11:58,56 min, SD = 0:48,39), F(1, 19) = 8.58, p = .009, eta2p = .31. There were no differences in heart rate, t(17) = 0.13, p > .05, blood lactate levels, t(19) = 1.19, p > .05, or ratings of perceived exertion F(1, 19) = .001, p > .05. While previous research has examined the impact of cognitive tasks on physical tasks, this is the first study to examine a self-paced physical task, showing that cognitive activity indeed contributes significantly to overall performance. Specifically, cognitive fatigue increased the perception of exertion, leading to lesser performance on the running task.

Left preference for sport tasks does not necessarily indicate left-handedness: sport-specific lateral preferences, relationship with handedness and implications for laterality research in behavioural sciences.

In the elite domain of interactive sports, athletes who demonstrate a left preference (e.g., holding a weapon with the left hand in fencing or boxing in a 'southpaw' stance) seem overrepresented. Such excess indicates a performance advantage and was also interpreted as evidence in favour of frequency-dependent selection mechanisms to explain the maintenance of left-handedness in humans. To test for an overrepresentation, the incidence of athletes' lateral preferences is typically compared with an expected ratio of left- to right-handedness in the normal population. However, the normal population reference values did not always relate to the sport-specific tasks of interest, which may limit the validity of reports of an excess of 'left-oriented' athletes. Here we sought to determine lateral preferences for various sport-specific tasks (e.g., baseball batting, boxing) in the normal population and to examine the relationship between these preferences and handedness. To this end, we asked 903 participants to indicate their lateral preferences for sport-specific and common tasks using a paper-based questionnaire. Lateral preferences varied considerably across the different sport tasks and we found high variation in the relationship between those preferences and handedness. In contrast to unimanual tasks (e.g., fencing or throwing), for bimanually controlled actions such as baseball batting, shooting in ice hockey or boxing the incidence of left preferences was considerably higher than expected from the proportion of left-handedness in the normal population and the relationship with handedness was relatively low. We conclude that (i) task-specific reference values are mandatory for reliably testing for an excess of athletes with a left preference, (ii) the term 'handedness' should be more cautiously used within the context of sport-related laterality research and (iii) observation of lateral preferences in sports may be of limited suitability for the verification of evolutionary theories of handedness.

An internal focus of attention is not always as bad as its reputation: how specific aspects of internally focused attention do not hinder running efficiency.

The aim of this study was to examine differentiated effects of internally focused attention in endurance sports. Thirty-two active runners ran 24 min on a treadmill at a fixed speed of moderate intensity. For each 6-min block, participants had to direct their attention on different internal aspects (movement execution, breathing, or feeling of the body) or received no instructions. Oxygen consumption (VO2) was measured continuously to determine running economy. Results revealed that the different internal focus instructions had differentiated effects on VO2: A focus on breathing as well as a focus on the running movement led to higher VO2 than a focus on feeling of the body which showed similar VO2 as the control condition. We conclude that an internal focus of attention is solely detrimental to performance when directed to highly automated processes (e.g., breathing or movement). However, an internal focus on how the body feels during exercise does not disrupt movement efficiency.

On-court position influences skilled tennis players' anticipation of shot outcome.

When anticipating future events like an opponent's stroke direction in tennis, players are assumed to rely on both kinematic and contextual cues such as an opponent's on-court position. However, knowledge of position dependency in shot-direction probabilities and experimental evidence of the effect of on-court position on action-outcome anticipation is missing. Here we show that shot-direction probabilities vary as a function of a hitting player's on-court position in professional tennis. Moreover, unlike novices, skilled players in particular relied on information about an opponent's position when anticipating forehand baseline shot direction in a video-based experiment. The position dependency in skilled players' prediction behavior was most evident when little information on an opponent's stroke kinematics was available. Findings suggest that skilled players consider the reliability of different information sources by weighting the available contextual and kinematic cues differently in the course of an opponent's unfolding action.

Attentional processes and choking under pressure.

The self-focus theory of choking under pressure explains decreases in performance of well-learned motor tasks with an increase in skill-focused attention. This shift in attentional focus has been demonstrated; however, specific propositions about the processes in pressure-induced attentional shift are yet to be developed. This study assesses whether specific aspects of movement execution attract more attention than others when movements are executed under pressure. Such elements are important in conscious movement control before execution becomes automated through practice; under pressure, attention may be redirected to these elements. Basketball free throws were executed by 22 junior national team members in a low and high pressure situation. Two dual task/focus conditions (related to different aspects of the movement) were implemented in each pressure condition. This dual task paradigm was used as a direct and detailed measure of skill focused attention, suitable to show specific pressure induced shifts of attention that lead to performance decrements. Pressure was induced by telling players that their performance would be evaluated by coaches. Players were defined as chokers if their performance decreased under this pressure. Chokers showed differences with regard to their attentional focus on movement execution in the pressure conditions compared to the players defined as non-chokers. The findings suggest that attentional shifts during choking can be related to specific aspects of movement execution.

Influence of red jersey color on physical parameters in combat sports.

Hill and Barton (2005) showed that fighters in tae kwon do, boxing, and wrestling who wore red jerseys during the 2004 Olympic Games won more often than those wearing blue jerseys. Regarding these results, this study investigated the effects of jersey color during a combat situation on fighters' physical parameters of strength and heart rate. An artificial, experimental combat situation was created in which the color of sport attire was assigned randomly. Fourteen pairs of male athletes matched for weight, height, and age had to fight each other: once in a red jersey and once in a blue. Heart rate (before, during, and after the fight) and strength (before the fight) were tested wearing the blue and the red jerseys. Participants wearing red jerseys had significantly higher heart rates and significantly higher pre-contest values on the strength test. Results showed that participants' body functions are influenced by wearing red equipment.

Left-handedness in professional and amateur tennis.

Negative frequency-dependent effects rather than innate predispositions may provide left-handers with an advantage in one-on-one fighting situations. Support mainly comes from cross-sectional studies which found significantly enhanced left-hander frequencies among elite athletes exclusively in interactive sports such as baseball, cricket, fencing and tennis. Since professional athletes' training regimes continuously improve, however, an important unsolved question is whether the left-handers' advantage in individual sports like tennis persists over time. To this end, we longitudinally tracked left-hander frequencies in year-end world rankings (men: 1973-2011, ladies: 1975-2011) and at Grand Slam tournaments (1968-2011) in male and female tennis professionals. Here we show that the positive impact of left-handed performance on high achievement in elite tennis was moderate and decreased in male professionals over time and was almost absent in female professionals. For both sexes, left-hander frequencies among year-end top 10 players linearly decreased over the period considered. Moreover, left-handedness was, however, no longer seems associated with higher probability of attaining high year-end world ranking position in male professionals. In contrast, cross-sectional data on left-hander frequencies in male and female amateur players suggest that a left-handers' advantage may still occur on lower performance levels. Collectively, our data is in accordance with the frequency-dependent hypothesis since reduced experience with left-handers in tennis is likely to be compensated by players' professionalism.

Perceptual training methods compared: the relative efficacy of different approaches to enhancing sport-specific anticipation.

The comparative efficacy of different perceptual training approaches for the improvement of anticipation was examined using a goalkeeping task from European handball that required the rapid prediction of shot direction. Novice participants (N = 60) were assigned equally to four different training groups and two different control groups (a placebo group and a group who undertook no training). The training groups received either (i) explicit rules to guide anticipation; (ii) direction as to the location of the key anticipatory cues provided either just verbally (verbal cueing) or supplemented with color highlighting (color cueing); or (iii) undertook a matching judgment task to encourage implicit learning. Performance of the groups was compared on an anticipation test administered before training, after the training intervention, under a condition involving evaluative stress, and after a 5-month retention period. The explicit learning, verbal cueing, and implicit learning conditions provided the greatest sustained improvements in performance whereas the group given color cueing performed no better than the control groups. Only the implicit learning group showed performance superior to the control groups under the stress situation. The verbal cueing, color cueing, and implicit learning groups formulated the lowest number of explicit rules related to the critical shoulder cue although the reported use of general cues and rules based on all cues did not differ between any of the groups. Anticipation can be improved through a variety of different perceptual training approaches with the relative efficacy of the different approaches being contingent upon both the time scale and conditions under which learning is assessed.