NEXT LEVEL COACHING – DECISION MAKING DURING GAMES: COGNITIVE MECHANISM

                                       

NEW TERMS

Top Down Process - where you're aiming to go

Knowledge in the Game - knowledge based on past experiences and expectations combined with information in that game moment

• There are 3 distinct views that offer different interpretations of the role of cognitive mechanisms within a player’s decision making process and they center on the presence or absence of memory representations that facilitate the selection of a course of action
• The information processing view is that decisions are made through a deliberate and conscious interaction with memory representations which have been formed over time
• The ecological view is that decision making process occurs through a direct connection between player and environment without memory representation
• The naturalistic decision making view is that conscious recourse to memory representations is dependent on the familiarity of the information presented to the decision maker, where more familiar situations reduce reference to memory representations
• These different viewpoints are usually explained in different ways with different language, causing inconsistency in the implementation of these views from coaches across all levels of sport
• It’s important to understand what cognitive mechanisms to facilitate, when, where and why
• All game moments within team sports possess a level of cognitive complexity which is defined by the amount of choices, attributes and/or time available within a decision making moment
• At a collective team level, situations of high cognitive complexity may benefit from reference to a global top-down shared mental model whilst situations of low cognitive complexity may be best to rest on the local bottom-up shared perception of, and response to, game information by team members
• By perfecting technique it can free up cognitive resources by taking conscious thought of technique out of the equation allowing more cognitive resources for decision making
• Cognitive mechanisms were varied but most players were cognitively driven by memory representations stored as knowledge of the game and knowledge in the game

Next Post - Common Frame of Reference