Continuous Improvement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Toner ◽  
Barbara Montero ◽  
Aidan Moran
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Power Law ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Bodily Awareness ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Skilled Action ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Conscious Processes

How do great athletes defy the power law of practice, according to which improvements in skill eventually plateau? To solve this puzzle, this book presents a theory of ‘continuous improvement’ which emphasizes the role that conscious processes play in maintaining and advancing skilled performers’ movement capacities. It argues that continuous improvement requires the use of processes such as abstract thought and bodily awareness in order to strategically alter and improve habitual movements in response to contextual demands. The book also elucidates a number of strategies that might be used to improve an athlete’s attentional control and help them switch their focus when they realize they have adopted task-irrelevant thoughts. Finally, it presents a range of methodological approaches that might be used by researchers to better understand the attentional flexibility that characterizes skilled action across training and performance contexts.

Practical and methodological considerations

2021 ◽  
pp. 177-196
Author(s):  
John Toner ◽  
Barbara Gail Montero ◽  
Aidan Moran
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Control ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Quiet Eye ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Skilled Action ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Task Irrelevant

This penultimate chapter considers how athletes might develop the ability to exert attentional control. It outlines some approaches that might help athletes to switch their focus or re-distribute patterns of attention when they realize they have adopted task-irrelevant thoughts. It evaluates the use of mindfulness, quiet-eye training, pressurized training, among other approaches, as means of training attentional control. The chapter concludes by outlining a series of methodological approaches that might be employed by researchers wishing to test some of the predictions put forth by our model of skilled action and our proposal that skilled maintenance is underpinned by the flexible deployment of attentional resources.

Explaining continuous improvement

2021 ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
John Toner ◽  
Barbara Gail Montero ◽  
Aidan Moran
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Skill Maintenance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Situational Demands ◽  
High Level ◽  
Conscious Processes ◽  
Automated Procedures

The final chapter synthesizes the arguments presented over the course of the book by suggesting that skill execution continues to be governed by conscious processes even after performers have attained a high level of expertise. It argues that skill-focused attention is necessary if experts are to eschew proceduralization and react flexibly to ‘crises’ and fine-grained changes in situational demands. In doing so, it discusses the role played by conscious control, reflection, and bodily awareness in maintaining performance proficiency. It suggests that skill maintenance and continuous improvement are underpinned by the use of both automated procedures (acknowledging that these are inherently active and flexible) and metacognitive knowledge. The chapter concludes by briefly considering how skill-focused attention needs to be applied in both training and performance contexts in order to facilitate continuous improvement.

The phenomenology of continuous improvement

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
John Toner ◽  
Barbara Gail Montero ◽  
Aidan Moran
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Conscious Processes

In this chapter, the phenomenon of continuous improvement is introduced and it is suggested that conscious processes play a crucial role in the maintenance and improvement of performance proficiency among skilled performers. This thesis is intriguing because it runs counter to a body of research warning us of the perils of thinking too much, or even at all, about highly practised movement. By contrast, it argues that continuous improvement is mediated by a performer’s ability to reflect and consciously guide their action during practice and performance. It critically evaluates some of the dominant paradigms in the skill acquisition literature, including information processing approaches and theories of embodiment, and explains why the book’s stance is intellectualist and pragmatic in nature. Lastly, it provides an overview of the remaining chapters in the book.

Is optimal performance really ‘mindless’?

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
John Toner ◽  
Barbara Gail Montero ◽  
Aidan Moran
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Control ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Optimal Performance ◽  
Peak Performance ◽  
Choking Under Pressure ◽  
Bodily Awareness ◽  
Skilled Action ◽  
The Mind

This chapter considers whether optimal/peak performance is as automatic or ‘mindless’ as many accounts of expertise suggest. It starts by exploring the phenomenon known as ‘flow’ which is typically presented as evidence that peak performance is mindless or automatic in nature. It then reviews recent literature in this area which reveals that the mind remains online during skilled action and especially during ‘clutch’ performances or when athletes are seeking to ‘make it happen’. It proceeds to discuss how ‘mindedness’ and bodily awareness are integral features of peak performance. It then uses this argument to uncover the potential perils associated with ‘non-mindedness’ or automated performance. In particular, the chapter discusses how excessive automaticity prevents athletes from exercising attentional control and results in a number of undesirable outcomes including slips, lapses, and in extreme cases, ‘choking’ under pressure.

Approaches to estimating the efficiency and performance of the trade enterprise activity: modern view

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
Lyudmyla Shymanovska-Dianych ◽  
Nataliya Pedchenko
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Modern View ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Enterprise Activity

In the article, the existing variety of terms of "efficiency" and "performance" is structured and the features of each concept and the differences between them are defined. The article proves that it is necessary to divide the categories "performance" and "efficiency" for trade enterprises. Each of them has an independent value, equally important for the evaluation of their activities, and can not replace another concept. The authors prove that in a market economy, when the results of the work of some market actors depend on the clarity and coherence of the work of other actors, the problem of efficiency becomes decisive. The article argues that the key to the success of any enterprise, including commercial ones, lies in the continuous improvement of the efficiency and performance of their activities, systematic analysis, development and implementation of measures aimed at increasing its efficiency and performance. The approaches to assessing the efficiency and performance of the enterprise, which most fully cover the key criteria for assessing the efficiency and performance of different enterprises, are analyzed. Despite the obvious differences below the described approaches, they do not exclude each other, but only characterize the operation of the enterprise from different sides. These approaches are based on certain indicators by means of which the analysis, comparison and evaluation of the enterprise is carried out. The authors prove that this system of indicators is not ideal and does not take into account all characteristics of trade enterprises, which influence the efficiency and performance of their activities. Therefore, they suggest expanding this list, adding such indicators as an indicator of the overall assessment of the economic profitability of a trade company, the indicator of the effectiveness of the use of retail space and indirect indicators of profitability.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
The Relationship

This volume addresses issues central to the study of ancient Greek performance culture: the role played by music in performed poetry; the ancients’ understanding of the relationship between music, poetry, and performance; and music’s relation to other areas of ancient intellectual life. This chapter comprises a brief discussion of the evidential difficulties involved in attempting to appreciate the effects created by ancient Greek music in conjunction with poetic texts. Some contemporary methodological approaches are canvassed as aids to this attempt, and an overview is provided of the chapters that make up the volume.

scholarly journals Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Kristina C. Backer ◽  
Heather Bortfeld
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
The Past ◽  
General Movement ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.

Anxiety, Processing Efficiency, and Cognitive Performance

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazanin Derakshan ◽  
Michael W. Eysenck
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
Performance Effectiveness ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
Attentional Control Theory ◽  
Efficiency Theory ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Switching Attention

There have been many attempts to account theoretically for the effects of anxiety on cognitive performance. This article focuses on two theories based on insights from cognitive psychology. The more recent is the attentional control theory ( Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007 ), which developed from the earlier processing efficiency theory ( Eysenck & Calvo, 1992 ). Both theories assume there is a fundamental distinction between performance effectiveness (quality of performance) and processing efficiency (the relationship between performance effectiveness and use of processing resources), and that anxiety impairs processing efficiency more than performance effectiveness. Both theories also assume that anxiety impairs the efficiency of the central executive component of the working memory system. In addition, attentional control theory assumes that anxiety impairs the efficiency of two types of attentional control: (1) negative attentional control (involved in inhibiting attention to task-irrelevant stimuli); and (2) positive attentional control (involved in flexibly switching attention between and within tasks to maximize performance). Recent (including unpublished) research relevant to theoretical predictions from attentional control theory is discussed. In addition, future directions for theory and research in the area of anxiety and performance are presented.

scholarly journals Higher availability of α4β2 nicotinic receptors (nAChRs) in dorsal ACC is linked to more efficient interference control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swann Pichon ◽  
Garibotto Valentina ◽  
Wissmeyer Michael ◽  
Seimbille Yann ◽  
Lia Antico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Acetylcholine Receptors ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Male Subjects

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are widely distributed in the human brain and play an important role in the neuromodulation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes. Previous work in humans showed that heteromeric α4β2 nAChRs are abundant in the cingulo-insular network underlying attentional control. It has been proposed that cholinergic neuromodulation by α4β2 nAChRs is involved in attentional control during demanding tasks, when additional resources are needed to minimize interference from task-irrelevant stimuli and focus on task-relevant stimuli. Here we investigate the link between the availability of α4β2 nAChRs in the cingulo-insular network and behavioral measures of interference control using two versions of the Stroop paradigm, a task known to recruit cingulo-insular areas. We used a previously published PET dataset acquired 24 non-smoking male subjects in the context of a larger study which investigated the brain distribution of nAChRs in two clinical groups using 2-[(18)F]F-A-85380 PET. We found that higher availability of α4β2 nAChRs in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) predicted better interference control independently of group and age. In line with animal models, our results support the view that the availability of α4β2 nAChRs in the dorsal ACC is linked with more efficient attentional control.

Examining the effects of musical type and intensity in performing the flanker task: A test of attentional control theory applied to non-emotional distractions

2020 ◽  
pp. 030573562092259
Author(s):  
Michael D Oliver ◽  
Jacob J Levy ◽  
Debora R Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Sound Intensity ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
Attentional Control Theory ◽  
And Performance

Music alters the interplay between components of cognition and performance; however, there are inconclusive findings on how. One explanation may be Attentional Control Theory, which states that anxiety places demands on cognitive resources producing adverse effects on cognitive performance. Similarly, characteristics of music alter cognitive faculties resulting in poor performance. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate effects on cognition specific to influences of music through the lens of Attentional Control Theory. In an attempt to explain how music impacts cognitive performance, we asked 141 college students (63.1% female) to complete the flanker task while listening to either lyrical or non-lyrical music at differing sound intensities. Results revealed a significant main effect of music type on flanker performance; however, no significant differences emerged with sound intensity. Findings suggest music with lyrics, rather than intensity, impairs cognition in adults, thereby elucidating the importance of avoiding music with lyrics during active tasks. Moreover, musical lyrics worsen performance by either interfering with selective attention processing of goal-relevant information or altering working memory capacity resulting in decreases in processing efficiency and performance effectiveness. Therefore, findings support the use of attentional control theory as a means of explaining differences in cognitive performance due to characteristics of music.

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