Causes And Characteristics Of Mind Wandering In Shooting Athletes And Its Effect On Task Performance

Mind wandering is a phenomenon in which an individual’s attention is diverted from the current task to internal thinking.For athletes,mind wandering is very common in various sports and can have a negative impact on their sports performance such as technical errors,decline in athletic performance,and decrease in sports performance.Shooting requires athletes to maintain a high level of concentration for a long time in the sport,the state of mind during the sport has a significant impact on its sports performance.If the athlete in the shooting process "distracted",the consequences will be fatal.So,what are the causes of mind wandering in shooters? What are the characteristics when the mind wanders? What are the effects of mind wandering during shooting on sports performance? What are the cognitive neural mechanisms? This study applied semi-structured interviews and experimental methods,along with event-related potentiation techniques,to combine the results of interviews with shooters and their behavioral and EEG indicators in the experimental task,i.e.,a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the above practice questions and to develop a study of the causes and characteristics of mind wandering occurring in shooters and its effects on task performance.Study I,A qualitative study of the causes of mind wandering in shooting athletes.Fourteen shooters were selected to participate in semi-structured interviews,and the textual data were coded at three levels using NVIVO 12.0 qualitative analysis software,and the results showed that the causes of mind wandering in shooters included both self-factors and external factors.The external factors included seven factors: competition rules,shooting situation,physical environment,shooting performance,shooting period,interference from others and competition equipment.Study 2,Experimental study of mind wandering occurring in a visual search task during the aiming phase of shooting.Thirty shooters were selected and divided into two groups of high and low motor levels according to their motor levels.Based on the fact that a shooter needs to maintain the aiming baseline(level collimation)while observing the collimation position(energy recovery)to predict the impact point(shooting performance)after the shot,three visual search tasks were designed using different information features to predict the shooting performance using the "Go/No Go" experimental paradigm.The results showed that The results showed that(1)the difference in the frequency of mind wandering between the different information features in the task was not significant for shooters of different sport levels.(2)Compared to the focused state,participants in both experimental groups had smaller P3 wave amplitudes and longer latency periods when mind wandering occurred under different task information characteristics.(3)Compared to the concentration condition,both the low and high level groups had significantly lower correct rates and significantly higher coefficients of variation in mean response times to task stimuli when mind wandering occurred in the different information characteristics tasks.Based on the above results,the main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Whether mind wandering occurs during shooting is influenced by both self-factors and external factors,with external factors acting through self-factors.(2)The frequency of mind wandering in the experiment did not decrease with the enrichment and complexity of the task information characteristics of the shooters at different sport levels.(3)Shooters’ mind wandering took up attentional cognitive resources,which led to a decrease in the cognitive resources allocated to the task.(4)Shooters’ mind wandering during the task resulted in a decrease in response accuracy and a decrease in the stability of their response speed.