Arousal & Attentional Narrowing

There is a limited amount of attentional capacity available at any one time.

The attention capacity that we have at any one time is related to our level of arousal. When we are lethargic our capacity is low, but it increases as arousal increases. This partly explains the value of arousal to effective performance.

However, if arousal continues to increase it begins to have a damaging effect & research within sport psychology has contributed to our understanding of what’s happening!

Landers et al (1985), studied relationship between arousal, attention & performance, finding that at low levels of arousal the performer picks up both appropriate & inappropriate cues.

At this level, the performer has a broad attentional field, e.g. footballer:- sees opposition players/teammates /movements/speed/direction/ position of ball / distance between ball & players/positions on pitch/ hear instructions from teammates, manager/ referee’s whistle/crowd. He will also hear his own breathing/ sound of passing train/billboards/lights of stadium etc. Footballer will not perform well because of broad attentional field!

As his arousal increases, his attention narrows & the irrelevant cues are ignored. This attentional narrowing enables him to focus on relevant cues & so he performs well.

However, if arousal continues, his attention continues to narrow & his performance will deteriorate. There may be several reasons for this  deterioration:

• Too much arousal may undermine athlete’s ability to narrow his attentional focus.
• Arousal increases immediately before performance of fine motor task causes additional attentional narrowing which seems to damage performance.
• Attentional narrowing causes player to scan attentional field less often or use his dominant attentional style, rather than several attentional styles as the occasion demands.

Although the effects of attentional narrowing create a handicap for our footballer, who needs to be aware of all that is happening around him, it’s advantageous to the gymnast because a narrow attentional focus enables her to shut out distractions.