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FOCUS AND CONCENTRATION, Lecture notes of Kinesiology

York UniversityKinesiology

KINESIOLOGY FULL LECUTRE NOTES ON FOCUS AND CONCENTRATION.

Typology: Lecture notes

2023/2024

Uploaded on 12/10/2025

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Focus and concentration
Emerging Research: Greater
British Medalists Project
– Compared multiple medalists with international-level athletes who didn’t
achieve medals
– Multiple medalists/high performance athlete were higher in ‘ruthlessness’ and
‘selfishness’
# “Kluge” is a word those engineers use to describe a solution that is clumsy but
surprisingly effective. That is the great way to describe our brain. Our brain is a Kluge.
# Visual illusion from cognitive scientist - the box had blue 3 dots in the center of each
side and the rest of the box are yellow. for some people what is happening is that their
brain is doing something funky with the way that it perceives and processes perceptual
information that affects the way we view simple things.
The white and grey color lines are the same and it is grey color. There is limits of the way
that our brain interprets perceptual information.
Personality effects on performance can be large or very small.
Activity 1: watch David Blaine video - it shows a cool neat card trick because you can learn
it simply in a maze your friends. But it also tells us about how the brain perceives visual
information that it’s going to be helpful for us.
Focus, Concentration and Attention Optimizes performance. Little mechanistic.
What is attention?
“Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession of the mind in clear and
vivid form of one out of what seem several simultaneous objects or trains of thought.” -
William James
# Focusing your brain and its mental energies in a specific area.
Attention is a bit more cognitive. Focus and concentration are bit more practical.
Focus = concentration = attention
Brain has inefficient ability to process information - ex. magicians exploit this inefficiency
Theories of Attention
•Single channel (fixed-James William) - brain can only attend to one thing at a
time, consciously switch 100% of attention to focus on another thing or
(attentional capacity that use to gear towards a single area and that this was a
fixed capacity that once you have directed it in one area that channel is close,
and it doesn’t take an additional input from other areas.). This is false and not
how attention works.
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Focus and concentration

Emerging Research: Greater British Medalists Project

  • Compared multiple medalists with international-level athletes who didn’t achieve medals
  • Multiple medalists/high performance athlete were higher in ‘ruthlessness’ and ‘selfishness’

“Kluge” is a word those engineers use to describe a solution that is clumsy but

surprisingly effective. That is the great way to describe our brain. Our brain is a Kluge.

Visual illusion from cognitive scientist - the box had blue 3 dots in the center of each

side and the rest of the box are yellow.  for some people what is happening is that their brain is doing something funky with the way that it perceives and processes perceptual information that affects the way we view simple things. The white and grey color lines are the same and it is grey color. There is limits of the way that our brain interprets perceptual information. Personality effects on performance can be large or very small. Activity 1: watch David Blaine video - it shows a cool neat card trick because you can learn it simply in a maze your friends. But it also tells us about how the brain perceives visual information that it’s going to be helpful for us. Focus, Concentration and Attention  Optimizes performance. Little mechanistic. What is attention? “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession of the mind in clear and vivid form of one out of what seem several simultaneous objects or trains of thought.” - William James

Focusing your brain and its mental energies in a specific area.

Attention is a bit more cognitive. Focus and concentration are bit more practical. Focus = concentration = attention Brain has inefficient ability to process information - ex. magicians exploit this inefficiency Theories of Attention

  • Single channel (fixed- James William ) - brain can only attend to one thing at a time, consciously switch 100% of attention to focus on another thing or (attentional capacity that use to gear towards a single area and that this was a fixed capacity that once you have directed it in one area that channel is close, and it doesn’t take an additional input from other areas.). This is false and not how attention works.
  • FALSE ex. Cocktail party effect - Having conversation with somebody or social gathering and if we hear our name across the room, you turn your head and look at that person who called your name. This means our attention was constantly scanning environment, multiple channels of attention. From evolutionary standpoint it would have some survival benefit. So therefore, this disproves the idea of being a single channel. o A multidimensional construct with several components: neuroscience - attention stored thru multiple areas of the brain, area of brain depends on: Attention works as distributed network of cognitive function across your brain.Alerting - hearing name called and alerting attention to it-moving attention from specific area  Orienting - diverting attention to this alert, thinking about it, looking at it etc. trying to understand what is happening in area.  Conflict (executive) - quality of info being presented, choosing to focus on it or on the task at hand. Resolving conflicts between what you were doing and what you might want to do. Do you want to shift your attention? Do you need to make a decision, executive functioning thing that is happening there?
  • Variable (flexible) Allocation - this is more likely the way you think about your won attention, that it is flexible or variable allocation resource. - choose to allocate attention in any area until resource is exhausted, and then you have to focus less on another area in order to strengthen this exhausted focus on one area. We can do many things at the same time because you have not allocated all of your attentional resources to something. - ex. talking to friend in car but then have to slam on breaks: you stop talking to allocate full attention on hitting the breaks and the conversation stops. o Talking on the phone while driving- fine when not needing to allocate 100% attention to something at hand but dangerous because when needed to focus all attention on slamming breaks your brain can’t instantly allocate the phone call attention to it Cognitive scientists are against any kind of phone calls in the care because it takes away attentional resources that you may need to drive in a situation that is unpredictable. If something changes in the driving situation, the car in front of you slows down, the passenger will stop talking because they see that same thing as you. However, when you are having a phone conversation with somebody, the person on the phone with you doesn’t stop talking, and that information has the potential to interfere with the attentional resources you need in order to meet the increased attentional demands of that driving situation.

Peak performance is related to automatic level and actual disassociation of attentional efforts. - In order to alter an opponent’s performance, you should point out things that their brain does automatically, such as bend knees when bumping, in order to make their brain focus attention on the task that once was automatic - distracts them placing conscious attention to well automatic tasks is interfering for performance. The concentration and focus is this distinction : Associative and Dissociative Attention

  • Associative Attentional Strategies: are when brain or your focus system associatites with elements of your performance. Focusing on body functions. - monitoring bodily functions and feelings such as heart rate, breathing rates, not getting very excited and muscle tension or relaxations. Ex: shoulders relaxed and muscle tension low. - Ex. tracking heart rate during exercise, tracking speed etc. Fitbit. These are all attentional strategies. It focuses on elements of performance that are related to optimal function. Thinking about marathon run, am I hitting my split times? Is my shoulders relaxed as I’m going uphill or feeling little fatigue? # All these things are considered associative strategies because you are focusing on things that are related to the performance. - Associative attention results in greater performance  more likely to pick up key levels or indicators of performance related information. - Faster runners associate more than slower runners - proportionately, meaning they still use dissociative methods but use associative for greater rate of time - Impossible for brain to use associative attention 100% of the time, max amount time it could attend to associative is 13min, but greater performers use associative for a greater ratio of time compared to dissociative
  • Dissociative Attentional Strategies: Where you try to take your self out of the performance situation.
    • not monitoring bodily functions.
    • using distraction and tuning out strategies - ex. listening to music while exercising
    • use dissociative when performing activities that are long and strenuous and uncomfortable (ex. running marathon for the first time)- it’s like taking yourself out of experience of running. Greater use of associative strategies is correlated with faster marathon running performances.
  • Marathon runners use associative strategies more often in practice and dissociative strategies more often in competition. Dissociative strategies can decrease fatigue and monotony
  • Dissociative strategies should be used by individuals to increase adherence to exercise or difficult sport performance. Using dissociation to help them deal with discomfort in the pain. Saved a lot of people from the dreaded DNF did not finish in 5K, 10k marathons, triathlons, all those things. Is attention always necessary?
  • No
  • Conscious attention isn’t always necessary Flow
  • In sport psychology, flow is a mental state where a performer is completely immersed in what they are doing.
  • Emphasizes enjoyment, intrinsic motivation - it is state that is commonly and inconsistently reported by performers when they get their optimal performance.
  • Not everyone experiences it.

Essential Elements of Flow:

  • Balance of challenge and skills
  • Loss of self-consciousness - that we have about what we look like, what are we doing and what could our performance mean.
  • Sense of control - of situation.
  • No extrinsic rewards - we are not focused on extrinsic rewards. We don’t focus on coach, parents, fans are doing etc.
  • Transformation of time
  • Effortless movement - in the performance time seem effortless.
  • Complete absorption in the activity
  • Merging of action and awareness - perfect link between what our cognitive system and what our motor systems are doing there.
  • Total concentration on the task at hand Balance between challenge and skill. Ex. driving and zoning out is like experiencing flow

The problem is that it is really hard to measure because some people report maybe five

of these right or nine characteristics. It makes it tough to design a scale or two to design a task that could measure this phenomenon. When attention goes wrong: Watch that video #2 - It is very famous cognitive illusion. Called the invisible gorilla and what the invisible gorilla does. It is eliciting a phenomenon if it worked for you and its

  • But this only was relevant for structured board setups Expert advantages: -better able to reconstruct structured chess boards. -However, this ability disappeared for unstructured boards. They were able to recall about 7 to 8 to 9 pieces. Short term accessible memory is 7 items plus or minus 2. It was proven that it had nothing to do with short term memory because if you scramble the pieces into a random order, their ability to recall them is the same as everyone else’s 7 items plus or minus 2. # It is structural information that is key element.
  • Memory tasks - short term memory limits 7 +/- 2 items (5-9) - thus nothing to do with memory ability because chess boards have around 20peices
  • Instead had to do with structured vs. unstructured boards Expert advantage:
  • Better able to reconstruct structured chess boards
  • However, this ability disappeared for unstructured boards - all groups recalled the same Pattern Recognition - this phenomenon of being able to recognize the structure in a situation has been replicated and in a number of different contexts.
  • Expert - better able to identify structured patterns of play from their domain Simon became this leader in information processing and information structure was because of what his simple study in 1973 showed. It related to a phenomenon that our brain does called chunking. Drlbwoelyltaatcaleohoct. Vs. The cool cat ate a yellow bird. -we make this mental representation of what a cat is in your brain, and you out those into a sequence of events that has representational meaning in way that your brain structures information. Chess players can use the same process, that same chunking process, to remember structured information about their sport and their activity. Same thing happens with expert performers and in different sports. The reason we know that this is a brain adaptation as opposed to something that people are born with is if you take that chess player out and you put them in different situation, the ability goes away. This means it’s a cognitive adaptation that their brain had made to the situation that they find themselves in. it is

training or a learning response. The increased ability to recognize patterns might be seen as well. o Why? Chunking - this increased ability to recognize patterns enables the expert to access information at a more efficient rate than the non-expert - increased processing time using structural methods. This allows experts to access information at a more efficient rate then a non-expert. Any additional time that you can give your brain for processing is going to give you an advantage over your opponents. o Ex. using grouping to memorize a list of things, ex. reading is a form of chunking - how our brain process things. Differences between Experts and Novices. Study 2 (Abernethy and Russell) Bruce’s is giant in this field of sport and perception. He was interested in looking at the types of perceptual information and what it means for an expert performer in the kinds of high velocity intercepted tasks that we see in a lot of racket sport. Fastest sport in the world is badminton and fastest object is the shuttlecock that was hit (200km/hr.).

- Racquet Sports - Perception/Attention - What we see vs. what an expert sees o Visual occlusion - take certain items away (ex. take away tennis racquet to see its significance to find out what items are information rich - found that the angle of arm/shoulder positioning is what experts look at vs. novices)  It is position of the arm and shoulder that gives away that kinetic information that is necessary in order to make good predictions.  Ex. Contact disturbing lenses don’t affect ability to make precise decisions o Temporal occlusion - In baseball pitching. Temporal occlusion involves removing temporal information in the execution of the task because the sport is so fast. We must use advanced cues. -Find out when experts look at these cues (anticipation judgment - ex. post release of pitcher, or pre-release pitcher to predict where ball lands) -Temporal occlusion relates to at what point in the temporal execution of the task is the player making the decision. We are not focusing on the pieces of visual information, but when in the temporal sequence of the execution, is that visual information important. In video they are removing pieces of visual information from the pitch that is coming at you. When remove information before that, the predictions go down because the points at which the temporal sequence, the decision is being made. Bruce’s work shows that it is not just the visual information, but the visual information at the right

  • only see this advantage in sports where the prediction of opponent movement is involved - perceptual frequency why? Two hypotheses:
  1. neuroanatomical advantage - some evidence that lefties are faster at processing information across what is called the corpus callosum (big channel that runs between your brain hemispheres). The advantage is only seen in sports that requires prediction in anticipation of what your opponent is doing.
  • Anatomical one is not right explanation because if you at it from frequency dependent advantage perspective, if your brain 90% of time gets to see right- handed oriented opponents, you will get good at developing the cognitive algorithms or the cognitive schema that help you predict a right-handed individual. What happens is that only 10% of time you get to see somebody from left orientation, your brain just doesn’t get as good at designing the anticipatory strategies to be able to figure out what that left-handed person is doing.
  1. frequency dependent advantage  brain develops good algorithms for actions that are more common ex. when facing righthanders is more frequent than facing left-handers. Left-handed opponents are not integrated as well in your brain so will be less advantaged point of play - summary has to do with experience and not innate neurological benefits

-Ruminating on past events or future events we should put optimal focus on being in

present.

  • Visual distractors (crowd) - when you see those scarf and flags that are waving,

and they are trying to distract you and they do that because they know that their

brain is susceptible to visual distraction.

  • Noise (crowd) - fan noise and if noise in an area is different from the one that

we have trained under, that can affect our focus. We want the noise to be roughly

the same as what we are going to be competing under.

  • Opponents’ comments - ex: trash talk. Reason why some people trash talk is

because in some situations it works.

  • Over-analysis of technique - our paralysis by analysis idea. Especially highly

skilled individuals, you don’t want them to focus on their technique because it slows

down execution. It might interfere with quality of execution that happens in all kinds

of skilled motor tasks that we do.

You might not interfere with their ability to execute, but you will slow them down

because they are focusing on technique instead of just letting the motor system do

what it does.

  • Fatigue (cognitive function) and Inadequate motivation and decreased arousal -

can all also affect focus, which is why when we can, we want to train people to the

point where fatigue is minimized.

Applied Psychology - Tips for Improving Focus

  • use competition simulations in practice. - understand parameters and the

constraints of the competition environment to the point where we can replicate that

in practice so there is no difference between the environments where practicing

and in the environments, we are competing in. ex: bringing noisy people to bank

posts and make noise while executing your practice, so it not a new situation to you

during a competition. Your brain just figured out how to work in that destructive

environment,

  • Develop Cue words or signals - to direct attention and help keep you focus on

task. Ex: long and lean is one that a lot of runners use when they are running up

hills so that their form doesn’t suffer these kinds of things. It orients your

attentional system to those pieces of associative information that related to your

performance.

  • Focus on Positive images. - to see yourself at the end. Having success and

beating that opponent.

  • Create Pre-competition and competition routines - ex. bouncing before free

throw - manages focus. We anticipate what is the worst thing that can happen. We

plan it so if it does happen then it is less likely to interfere with your focus and

attention.

  • Eye contact with competitors - aggression response, orientates attention.
  • Self-monitor strategies - related to ideas of the value of associate of

characteristics. It allows to monitor your own function and performance to help you

identify when things might be on the verge of going wrong. Ex: running, if you see

the phase is same and heart rate is increases then you know something is occurring

there and it could be fatigue and it alarms you etc.

  • Over-learn skills - make skills automatic - sometimes not possible for certain

athletes ex, football plays aren’t automatic but are open and fluid. Although more

automaticipation = more attention available for other tasks. We talked about the

dominant response. It is what our body does in situations of stress and pressure.

We want is the dominant pattern to be the correct pattern. Ex: people get stress out

in the quality of their movement decreases. This means the dominant movement

was not correct movement. We want is to over learn skill so much that they are

resistant to pressure, they are resistant to fatigue, or anxiety. If it happens then we

fall back to a fatigued state to the right kind of motor execution.

  • Consider ‘What ifs”