Abstract
We investigated if the principles of specificity could be extended to the psychological construct of anxiety (pressure) and also how movement planning and control are disrupted through the introduction or removal of performance pressure. Novices practiced a video aiming task requiring discrimination of 3 possible stimuli followed by the production of a stimulus associated 3 element response. Instructions included the need to react to stimuli and produce the associated response as quickly as possible. Participants practiced the task in one of two groups and all experienced a switch in conditions of pressure to perform both early and late in practice; low pressure and transferred to high pressure (control-anxiety group) or the reverse of this (anxiety-control group). In line with the choking literature, results revealed a significant acquisition-to-transfer decrement in performance for the control-anxiety group. Interestingly, the same acquisition-to-transfer pattern of results was observed for the anxiety-control group thus supporting specificity of practice. That is, a change in conditions between pressure to perform at acquisition and transfer (regardless if that was an increase or decrease in pressure) resulted in performance decrements. Results also revealed that the reaction time measure of response programming was affected by a change in the conditions between acquisition and transfer to a greater extent than the movement time measure of response execution. These findings demonstrate that the specificity of learning principle can be extended to the psychological construct of anxiety and that the motor control mechanisms most affected by a switch in pressure to perform are those associated with response programming.
