Visual Attention and Brain Processes That Underlie Expert Performance: Implications for Sport and Military Psychology

Advances in methodology have allowed sport psychologists to broaden their understanding of expert performance through inclusion of physiological assessments of expertise (e.g., eye movements and bioelectric signals such as the electroencephalogram [EEG]). Innovations linking physiology, basic cognitive processes, and performance have illustrated the degree to which these techniques can converge on a finer-grained understanding of factors driving learning and performance at exceptional levels. A recent focus of this research has centered on the coupling between visual search patterns and other psychophysiological indices of attention and arousal (such as the spectral characteristics of the EEG), particularly among expert and nonexpert performers. Within this context, we describe results of recent investigations that have employed psychophysiological assessment of emotion/attention interactions and their influence on motor task performance in increasingly applied ecologically valid environments either simulated in the laboratory or monitored in actual competitive settings. Current theoretical, empirical, and applied questions in sport psychology are discussed while considering critical issues pertaining to current and future military initiatives.