Funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for a research project by the Department of Performance Psychology on a theory to help explain performance in pressurised situations.
Cologne/Germany, February 13, 2025. In the police, in emergency medicine or in sport, people often have to make decisions of great importance quickly. They find themselves in situations in which high pressure to perform can arise. However, people sometimes perform worse than usual under pressure. This failure to perform under pressure can have far-reaching consequences for those involved, for example when the physical integrity or health of a patient is at stake. Or in sport: when winning a medal depends on it.
It is therefore crucial to understand the underlying mechanisms in order to develop effective interventions that maintain performance and success under pressure. This is the focus of a research project in the Department of Performance Psychology, which has now been approved and will begin implementation in October.
‘In order to improve our understanding of adaptive behaviour, we believe it is important not to consider movement selection and execution separately,’ explains project leader Dr Laura Voigt. In a previous DFG project to initiate international cooperation, the researchers integrated two concepts – motor heuristics and movement analogies – into one theory, the ‘Theory of Simplified Information Processing in Action’. While motor heuristics simplify the selection of movements, movement analogies simplify the execution of movements.
Motor heuristics refer to simplified, efficient rules or strategies that the human body uses to select movements quickly and without complex calculations. The number of pieces of information to be used is reduced with the help of ‘rules of thumb’, i.e. the person falls back on the information that has proven to be the most valuable in the past.
Movement analogies make use of the fact that new movements do not have to be planned from scratch, but are compared with an already known movement. The movements have similarities and the previous experience helps to master the new task more easily. Movement analogies facilitate information processing during the execution of movements by summarising information in larger units (chunks).
The central hypothesis of the ‘Theory of Simplified Information Processing in Action’ is that motor heuristics and movement analogies can be regarded as functionally equivalent rules, i.e. that they achieve the same effect, but with different cognitive mechanisms. Both aim to simplify information processing during an action, reduce cognitive effort and thus protect performance under pressure.
‘The main goal of our project is to empirically test the predictions of the ‘Theory of Simplified Information Processing in Action’ to explain performance in pressurised situations. In eight experiments, we will investigate whether, how and when motor heuristics and movement analogues prevent performance drops under pressure,’ says project leader Laura Voigt. The project uses dynamic table tennis tasks in which complex movements have to be selected and executed simultaneously. This tests explanations of how people maintain their performance in everyday activities.
In the project, Dr Laura Voigt and Prof Dr Dr Dr Markus Raab from the German Sport University Cologne are cooperating with two universities in New Zealand: Prof Dr Rich Masters (University of Waikato) and Dr Arne Nieuwenhuys (University of Auckland). The project will run for three years from 1 October 2025.
Further Information:
(https://fis.dshs-koeln.de/de/persons/laura-voigt-2)
Forschungsprofil mit Publikationen von Laura Voigt
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AI-generated, The project uses dynamic table tennis tasks in which complex tasks are simultaneously