scholarly journals What Cognitive Mechanism, When, Where, and Why? Exploring the Decision Making of University and Professional Rugby Union Players During Competitive Matches

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ashford ◽  
Andrew Abraham ◽  
Jamie Poolton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Individual

Over the past 50 years decision making research in team invasion sport has been dominated by three research perspectives, information processing, ecological dynamics, and naturalistic decision making. Recently, attempts have been made to integrate perspectives, as conceptual similarities demonstrate the decision making process as an interaction between a players perception of game information and the individual and collective capability to act on it. Despite this, no common ground has been found regarding what connects perception and action during performance. The differences between perspectives rest on the role of stored mental representations, that may, or may not facilitate the retrieval of appropriate responses in time pressured competitive environments. Additionally, in team invasion sports like rugby union, the time available to players to perceive, access memory and act, alters rapidly between specific game situations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine theoretical differences and the mechanisms that underpin them, through the vehicle of rugby union. Sixteen semi-elite rugby union players took part in two post-game procedures to explore the following research objectives; (i) to consider how game situations influence players perception of information; (ii) to consider how game situations influence the application of cognitive mechanisms whilst making decisions; and (iii) to identify the influence of tactics and/or strategy on player decision making. Deductive content analysis and elementary units of meaning derived from self-confrontation elicitation interviews indicate that specific game situations such as; the lineout, scrum or open phases of play or the tackle situation in attack or defence all provide players with varying complexity of perceptual information, formed through game information and time available to make decisions. As time increased, players were more likely to engage with task-specific declarative knowledge-of the game, stored as mental representations. As time diminished, players tended to diagnose and update their knowledge-in the game in a rapid fashion. Occasionally, when players described having no time, they verbalised reacting on instinct through a direct connection between perception and action. From these findings, clear practical implications and directions for future research and dissemination are discussed.

scholarly journals Should I stay or should I go? Evidence accumulation drives decision making in human drivers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
David Abbink ◽  
Gustav Markkula
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Dynamic Constraints ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Out Of Sample

Laboratory studies of abstract, highly controlled tasks point towards noisy evidence accumulation as a key mechanism governing decision making. Yet it is unclear whether the cognitive processes implicated in simple, isolated decisions in the lab are as paramount to decisions that are ingrained in more complex behaviors, such as driving. Here we aim to address the gap between modern cognitive models of decision making and studies of naturalistic decision making in drivers, which so far have provided only limited insight into the underlying cognitive processes. We investigate drivers' decision making during unprotected left turns, and model the cognitive process driving these decisions. Our model builds on the classical drift-diffusion model, and emphasizes, first, the drift rate linked to the relevant perceptual quantities dynamically sampled from the environment, and, second, collapsing decision boundaries reflecting the dynamic constraints imposed on the decision maker’s response by the environment. We show that the model explains the observed decision outcomes and response times, as well as substantial individual differences in those. Through cross-validation, we demonstrate that the model not only explains the data, but also generalizes to out-of-sample conditions, effectively providing a way to predict human drivers’ behavior in real time. Our results reveal the cognitive mechanisms of gap acceptance decisions in human drivers, and exemplify how simple cognitive process models can help us to understand human behavior in complex real-world tasks.

scholarly journals Communication in Action: Planning and Interpreting Communicative Demonstrations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark K Ho ◽  
Fiery Andrews Cushman ◽  
Michael L. Littman ◽  
Joseph L. Austerweil
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Intentional Behavior ◽  
The World ◽  
Communication Culture

Theory of mind enables an observer to interpret others' behavior in terms of unobservable beliefs, desires, intentions, feelings, and expectations about the world. This also empowers the person whose behavior is being observed: By intelligently modifying her actions, she can influence the mental representations that an observer ascribes to her, and by extension, what the observer comes to believe about the world. That is, she can engage in intentionally communicative demonstrations. Here, we develop a computational account of generating and interpreting communicative demonstrations by explicitly distinguishing between two interacting types of planning. Typically, instrumental planning aims to control states of the physical environment, whereas belief-directed planning aims to influence an observer's mental representations. Our framework (1) extends existing formal models of pragmatics and pedagogy to the setting of value-guided decision-making, (2) captures how people modify their intentional behavior to show what they know about the reward or causal structure of an environment, and (3) helps explain data on infant and child imitation in terms of literal versus pragmatic interpretation of adult demonstrators' actions. Additionally, our analysis of belief-directed intentionality and mentalizing sheds light on the socio-cognitive mechanisms that underlie distinctly human forms of communication, culture, and sociality.

Review of Family Financial Decision Making: Suggestions for Future Research and Implications for Financial Education

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinhee Kim ◽  
Michael S. Gutter ◽  
Taylor Spangler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Process ◽  
Family System ◽  
Financial Education ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Financial Decisions ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
The Individual

This article reviews the theories and literature in intrahousehold financial decisions, spousal partners and financial decision making, family system and financial decision process, children, and financial decisions. The article draws conclusions from the literature review and discusses directions for future research and educational programs. Most financial education and counseling takes place at the individual level, whereas financial decisions take place at household and intrahousehold levels. Family members, spouses/partners, children, and others play a key role in individuals’ financial decisions. The article proposes the key programmatic implications for financial professionals and educators that need to be integrated into financial education and counseling. Understanding the unique dynamics of family financial decision making would help create effective educational and counseling strategies for the whole families.

scholarly journals Negotiating System Requirements to Secure Client Engagement – Therapist Strategies in Adolescent Psychotherapy Initiated by Others

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Signe Hjelen Stige ◽  
Ingrid Eik ◽  
Hanne Weie Oddli ◽  
Christian Moltu
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Adolescent Psychotherapy ◽  
Therapeutic Practice ◽  
Client Engagement ◽  
System Requirements ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Managing System ◽  
The Individual

Background: Many adolescent clients come to treatment reluctantly, at the initiative of others. Adolescents also quit therapy prematurely more often than adult clients do. This points to the value of finding good ways to engage adolescent clients in treatment and understanding more of what therapists do to achieve this task.Methods: We used focus group methodology to explore therapist strategies and behaviors to engage adolescent clients who come to therapy at the initiative of others. Ten focus group interviews with a total of 51 therapists were conducted with existing treatment teams from seven different clinics in community mental health care for children and youth. Reflexive thematic analysis was used as a framework to guide the analytical process.Findings: Navigating a position allowing the therapist and adolescent to meet and work toward a shared understanding of the situation and what could help was considered the main gateway to client engagement. To do this, therapists had to manage the pull between system requirements and their obligation to the individual adolescent client, represented by the theme Managing system requirements. The process of working with the adolescent to ensure engagement is represented by the four themes: Counteracting initial obstacles for client engagement – “You are not trapped here”; Sharing definitional power – “What does it look like to you?”; Practicing transparency – “I want you to know what I see”; and Tailoring as ideal – “I will design this therapy for you.”Implication and conclusion: Therapists want to understand their adolescent clients’ position better, and subsequently adjust the treatment goals and techniques to establish sufficient common ground to allow both the therapist and adolescent to find the therapeutic project worthwhile. However, system requirements and service organization were found to obstruct and influence these processes in several ways, pointing to the significance of exploring the interplay between system organization and therapeutic practice more thoroughly. There was also a variation between therapist behaviors described by different therapists within the same treatment teams, as well as systematic differences between treatment teams, pointing to the importance of future research differentiating wanted from unwanted variation in treatment.

scholarly journals Decision making and performance of Malaysian rugby sevens referees

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamad Nizam
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Field Performance ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Experience Level ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
And Performance ◽  
One Way Anova

<p>This study aims to examine the decision making by rugby sevens referees, and its relationship with the referees’ performance. The instruments used in this study are the Rugby Referee Decision Making Test (α=.74) and the Referee Sevens Field Performance Evaluation (α=.94). It was administered to 132 rugby sevens referees (mean age 33.4 + 1.5 years; 132 males) from the Malaysian Rugby Union (MRU), which have been refereeing in 10 rugby sevens tournaments in Malaysia. Descriptive and Inferential statistics (one way ANOVA and Pearson’s Correlation) were employed to analyse the data. Decision Making ( = 24.13, SD= 5.24) and performance ( = 136.45, SD = 4.47) were identified at a moderate level. The findings indicated no significant differences [F= (3, 128) =.246, p&gt;0.05] in the decision making across age level, but there were significant differences [F= (3, 128) =63.159, p&lt;0.05] across experience level. Highly experienced referees scored significantly higher in all decision making constructs compared to less experienced referees. The research findings have revealed a positive and significant relationship between decision making (r= .61, p&lt;.05) and referee performance. In conclusion, the decision making can help rugby sevens referees’ performance, and it is recommended that referees should increase<strong> </strong>the use of decision making in future<strong> </strong>training and assessment. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of decision making interventions in enhancing referees’ performance in the future.</p>

Conceptualizing intragroup and intergroup dynamics within a controlled crowd evacuation

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terra Elzie, ME ◽  
Erika Frydenlund, MS ◽  
Andrew J. Collins, PhD ◽  
R. Michael Robinson, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Crowd Modeling ◽  
The Individual

Social dynamics play a critical role in successful pedestrian evacuations. Crowd modeling research has made progress in capturing the way individual and group dynamics affect evacuations; however, few studies have simultaneously examined how individuals and groups interact with one another during egress. To address this gap, the researchers present a conceptual agent-based model (ABM) designed to study the ways in which autonomous, heterogeneous, decision-making individuals negotiate intragroup and intergroup behavior while exiting a large venue. A key feature of this proposed model is the examination of the dynamics among and between various groupings, where heterogeneity at the individual level dynamically affects group behavior and subsequently group/group interactions. ABM provides a means of representing the important social factors that affect decision making among diverse social groups. Expanding on the 2013 work of Vizzari et al., the researchers focus specifically on social factors and decision making at the individual group and group/group levels to more realistically portray dynamic crowd systems during a pedestrian evacuation. By developing a model with individual, intragroup, and intergroup interactions, the ABM provides a more representative approximation of real-world crowd egress. The simulation will enable more informed planning by disaster managers, emergency planners, and other decision makers. This pedestrian behavioral concept is one piece of a larger simulation model. Future research will build toward an integrated model capturing decision-making interactions between pedestrians and vehicles that affect evacuation outcomes.

scholarly journals Naturalistic Decision Making and Organizations: Reviewing Pragmatic Science

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 925-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Gore ◽  
Adrian Banks ◽  
Lynne Millward ◽  
Olivia Kyriakidou
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Pragmatic Research ◽  
Similarities And Differences

This article examines the similarities and differences between the traditions of naturalistic decision making and organizational decision making. Illustrative examples of successful NDM inquiry in healthcare organizations are reviewed, highlighting an area where these two pragmatic research paradigms overlap. Not only do researchers in these areas aim to improve our understanding of decision making, they provide practical and realistic alternatives to laboratory-based research on decision making. The article presents a number of propositions for future research on NDM and organizations.

Reconsidering the “Conventional Wisdom” of the Relationship between False Alarms and Risk Beliefs

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1419-1423
Author(s):  
Daphne E. Whitmer ◽  
Bradford L. Schroeder ◽  
Shannon K.T. Bailey ◽  
Valerie K. Sims
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
False Alarm ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Future Research ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Risk Beliefs ◽  
Perceived Danger ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Strong Agreement

The purpose of this research was to examine how false alarm experience of weather-related emergencies affects the relationship between perceived danger and desire for warnings. Participants reported how dangerous they perceived each event to be, whether they believed warnings should be distributed, whether they had experienced the event, and whether they had experienced a false alarm of the event. Participants indicated strong agreement for the desire for weather warnings. Although the literature implies that people who have experienced many false alarms may perceive that danger as less severe in the future due to the “crywolf effect,” our data suggest that people have a heightened risk perception and desire for warnings of those events. Because memories inform mental representations that guide decision-making in uncertain situations, it is imperative that future research continue to examine what people have stored in memory of false alarm experiences to settle debates in the contentious literature of false alarms and risk perception.

“Opting Out” or “Pushed Out”? Integrating Perspectives on Women’s Career Equality for Gender Inclusion and Interventions

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 228-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Ernst Kossek ◽  
Rong Su ◽  
Lusi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Career Preference ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Gender Inclusion ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Work Family ◽  
The Individual

This paper integrates the rapidly growing literatures on the individual and organizational factors that contribute to women’s career equality. We organize studies into three research perspectives: career preference, gender bias, and work-family explanations. These literatures diverge on whether women “opt out” or are “pushed out” of leadership positions in organizations. Further, the interconnectedness of these “pushes” and “pulls” and micro-macro linkages are not well-integrated. This creates a lack of clarity about what scholars should study and what practices organizations should implement. We define women’s career equality as an individual and organizational phenomenon involving the degree to which women (a) have equal access to and participation in career opportunities, and (b) experience equal intrinsic and extrinsic work and nonwork outcomes compared to men. We bridge the interdisciplinary divides by developing an integrative multi-level model of women’s career equality. We propose that individuals’ career perceptions and experiences are embedded in social contexts reflecting the climate for gender inclusion and interact with these contexts to shape women’s career equality outcomes. The climate for gender inclusion has three dimensions: fairness, leveraging talent, and workplace support. We identify coalescing themes to stimulate future research, including attention to national socio-economic influences, improving metrics and measurement of gender inclusion climate, multi-level career equality outcomes, a joint focus on implicit and explicit bias, and designing cross-disciplinary interventions for experiments. In order to foster theory-based research that is linked to practice, we suggest implementing and scientifically evaluating comprehensive workplace interventions that integrate perspectives and levels.

scholarly journals A review of the biomechanical determinants of rugby scrummaging performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Andrew Green ◽  
Yoga Coopoo ◽  
Jason Cameron Tee ◽  
Warrick McKinon
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Compressive Force ◽  
Force Production ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Vertical Force ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Force Components ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Level Analysis

Introduction: The scrum is a physical contest unique to the game of rugby union, is important for determining match outcomes. Objectives: This review will describe the current understanding of the kinetic and kinematic determinants of successful scrum performance to support coaching interventions and inform future research. Methods: Literature review Results: Individual and combined scrumming forces increase with playing level, but there is no concurrent increase in body mass or player strength. There is very little variation in individual kinematics between individuals and across levels of play suggesting that there are limited possible techniques for successful scrummaging. Live scrum contests are dynamic and require constant adjustments to body positions in response to increased compressive force and exaggerated the lateral and vertical force components. Skilled performers are able to exert high levels of horizontal force while maintaining effective body positions within this dynamic environment. Conclusions: Success in scrummaging depends on optimisation of joint angles and force production at the individual level, and co-ordination of effort at a team level. Analysis presented here demonstrates that producing large scrum-specific forces and achieving the optimal ‘body shape’ are essential for scrum performance.

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