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The psychology of Concentration in Sport Performers: a cognitive analysis
AIDAN P. MoRAN Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, 1996
Review by JACQUES H.A. VAN ROSSUM1
This monograph reviews the facts, figures, notions and suppositions of a central aspect of athletic achievement. The blurb on the back cover of the book states the following: "The capacity to 'concentrate' effectively, or to exert mental effort on the specific task at hand while ignoring distractions, is widely regarded by athletes, coaches and psychologists as the key to successful performance in competitive sport". The writer of this monograph, Aidan P. Moran (at University College Dublin, Department of Psychology), is Official Psychologist to the Irish Olympic Squad, and is therefore in an excellent position to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
The book contains four sections. The first two chapters (Section One) address cognitive sport psychology (i.e., the relevance of mental factors) and introduces the psychological approach to concentration (that is, attention as a mental or cognitive skill).
Section Two (three chapters) deals with the notion of concentration in the context of athletics discussing why attention is crucial for athletes, and endeavours to answer questions such as why athletes often fail to concentrate in situations where concentration is paramount. This section also targets questions on the measurement of attention and concentration. The paradoxical conclusion of this part of the book appears to be that hardly any empirical data currently exist to document the relevance of concentration for athletes, nor to provide a solid answer to the question why athletes often fail to concentrate. Moran especially criticises the atheoretical nature of investigations done so far. The third theme of this section suggests that the most popular methodology in this type of psychological research is the measurement of concentration by means of self-report procedures. The problem of these measures, however, is their non-unobtrusiveness. A widely employed instrument is Nideffer's TAIS (Test of Attention and Interpersonal Style), which Moran argues must "need to address a...