Cognitive sport psychology

Abstract

Cognitive sport psychology is concerned with the scientific investigation of “cognitive” processes in sport performers. The classical paradigm in cognitive psychology was shaped significantly by a symposium held on 11 September 1956 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The concept of the mind as a representational information-processing system revolutionized cognitive psychology for one major reason: it challenged the prevailing behaviourist view that, as mental processes were unobservable, they could not be studied scientifically. Arising from the limitations of the information-processing paradigm, a range of embodiment approaches to the study of cognition emerged in psychology in the early 1990s. Research in cognitive sport psychology is influenced by two main theoretical paradigms – the classical or information-processing approach and a range of embodiment approaches. Evidence to support embodiment theories in psychology has emerged from numerous sources, especially in the field of perception.