숙련된 운동능력에 대한 과도한 생각: 또는 왜 가르치는 사람은 할 수가 없는가 (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2008)

숙련된 운동능력에 대한 과도한 생각: 또는 왜 가르치는 사람은 할 수가 없는가 (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2008)

Overthinking skilled motor performance: Or why those who teach can’t do

KRISTIN E. FLEGAL

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

AND

MICHAEL C. ANDERSON

University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland

세계정상급 선수이든, 주말에만 즐기는 사람이든, 골프실력을 향상시키는 것은 마음으로부터 시작한다. 과도하게 샷에 대해 생각하는 것에서 벗어나서, 무의식에 맡겼을 때 무슨 일이 생기는지를 알면 놀랄 것이다.

Whether you’re a world-class player or a weekend en- thusiast, improving your golf game begins with your mind. You may be amazed to discover what happens when you free yourself from overthinking your shots and let your unconscious mind play the game. 

Marlin Mackenzie (1990)

 

운동능력을 숙달한 모든 사람은 절차적지식(Procedural Knowledge)을 묘사하는 것이 말로는 쉽지만 실제로 하기에는 쉽지 않다는 것을 알 것이다. 절차적 지식을 묘사하는 것이 어려운 것에는 그만한 이유가 있다. 무수한 인지심리학 연구와 인지 신경과학연구로부터 절차적지식과 서술적지식(declarative knowledge)가 서로 다른 표상(representation)에 의해서 support되고, 서로 별개의 신경시스템에 의해서 중재됨을 보여주고 있다. 그러나 만약 숙달된 운동선수에 대해서 보자면, 절차적지식과 서술적지식의 관계는 중립적인 것조차 되지 못한다. 즉, 자신의 운동능력에 대해서 의식적으로 성찰하는 것이 그것을 적절히 수행하는데 오히려 방해가 된다. 여기서, 우리는 이 negative한 관계를 살펴보고자 한다. 이미 잘 학습한 스킬의 요소요소에 집중하면서 동시에 그 스킬을 수행할 때 스킬 수행이 저하된다. 우리가 주장하는 것은, (스킬에 대해) 과도하게 생각하는 것의 부정적 효과는 생각-수행이 동시적으로 일어날 때online distraction 뿐만 아니라, 절차적 스킬을 말로 묘사하는 것이 장기적으로도 나중의 수행에 부정적 영향을 준다는 것을 보여주려하는 것이다.

Anyone who has mastered a motor skill appreciates that describing the procedural knowledge underlying one’s performance is, literally, easier said than done. Describing procedural knowledge is difficult with good reason. Abundant evidence from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience indicates that procedural and declarative knowledge are supported by different repre- sentations and mediated by distinct underlying neural systems (e.g., Anderson, 1982; Fitts & Posner, 1967; Ga- brieli, 1998; Keele & Summers, 1976). But if skilled ath- letes are to be believed, the relation between procedural and declarative knowledge may be considerably less than neutral: Reflecting consciously on what one knows about a skill often undermines its proper execution. Here, we examine this putative negative relationship. There is em- pirical evidence that attending to the components of a well-learned skill can impair concurrent performance (Beilock, Carr, MacMahon, & Starkes, 2002; Gray, 2004; Jackson, Ashford, & Norsworthy, 2006). Our claim is that the negative effects of overthinking are not limited to online distraction, but also reflect a longer term im- pact of verbalizing procedural skills on later execution.

 

언어의 뒤덮음 효과Verbal Overshadowing Effect

The Verbal Overshadowing Effect

말로 표현하기 어려운 인식경험을 말로 표현하는 것이 기억의 유지retention을 손상시킨다는 연구가 있다. Schooler and Engstler-Schooler 는 은행강도 얼굴과 같은 말로 표현하기 어려운 자극을 묘사하는 경우에 나중에 (그것을 하지 않은 사람보다) 그 얼굴 인식을 더 못한다는 것을 보여줬다. 이러한 용어는 '언어의 뒤덮음 효과'라고 불리는데, '말로 표현하는 것'이 언어-기반 표상representation을 만듦으로서 말로 표현하기 어려운 perceptual memory를 덮어버린다는 것이다. 이 현상은 perceptual experience의 세부적 사항이 말로 표현될 수 있는 수준을 넘어설 때 발생한다. 말로 표현하는 것이 어렵지 않은 것(구두 진술) 또는 논리적 문제해결에 대해서는 verbalization이 방해가 되지 않고 오히려 가끔은 더 기억을 촉진한다. 방해 효과는 오직 개개인이 묘사불가능한 특성을 갖는 stimulus를 묘사하려고 시도할 때 발생한다. 언어의 뒤덮음 효과는 맛, 오디션, 지도지억, insight 문제해결 등에서도 나타나면서 시각적 기억에만 해당되는 것이 아님을 보여줬다.

There is a precedent for the hypothesis that verbaliz- ing ineffable perceptual experiences impairs later reten- tion. Schooler and Engstler-Schooler (1990) observed that participants who described a difficult-to-verbalize stimulus (the face of a bank robber) from memory were much worse at later recognizing that face than were par- ticipants who did not put their memory into words. This effect was termed verbal overshadowing, on the basis of the idea that verbalization creates a language-based representation that overshadows difficult-to-verbalize aspects of the perceptual memory. The phenomenon oc- curs when the details of a perceptual experience exceed what can be conveyed in words. For easy-to-verbalize tasks, such as recalling a spoken statement (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990) or logical problem solv- ing (Schooler, Ohlsson, & Brooks, 1993), verbalization does not impede and, in some cases, facilitates mem-ory. Disruption occurs only when individuals attempt to describe memory for a stimulus with indescribable qualities. Verbal overshadowing has been observed in such domains as taste (Melcher & Schooler, 1996), au- dition (Houser, Fiore, & Schooler, 2003), map memory (Fiore & Schooler, 2002), and insight problem solving (Schooler et al., 1993), establishing that the effect is not limited to visual memories per se.

언어로 묘사하는 행동이 언제나 perceptual experience의 기억을 손상시키는 것은 아니다. 예를 들면 Melcher and Schooler 는 이 현상이 그 영역에 대한 그 사람의 전문성(perceptual and verbal expertise)에 따라서 달라짐을 보였다. 와인 음주가에 대해서, 중등도 스킬을 가진 사람만이 맛을 묘사한 다음 와인을 더 못 맞췄으며, 이것이 보여주는 것이 perceptual expertise보다 verbal expertise보다 뛰어날 때만 발생함을 뜻한다. 후속 연구에서, 참여자들은 버섯에 대한 perceptual 훈련과 conceptual 훈련을 받았는데, perceptual training을 받은 사람에서만 verbal description이 인식능력의 저하를 보였다..

Verbal description does not always impair memories for perceptual experiences, however. For instance, Melcher and Schooler (1996) found that verbal overshadowing de- pends on one’s relative perceptual and verbal expertise in a domain. In a study of wine drinkers, only those at an inter- mediate skill level recognized a previously sampled wine less accurately after describing it, suggesting that impair- ment occurs only when perceptual expertise outstrips ver- bal expertise. In a later study (Melcher & Schooler, 2004), participants received either perceptual or conceptual train- ing on recognizing types of mushrooms, after which they described a target mushroom from memory. Importantly, verbal description impaired later recognition of the target mushroom only for participants who had received percep- tual training.

언어의 뒤덮음 효과가 처음 보고되었을 때, 언어로 표현하는 것이 기억을 손상시키는 기전은 사람으로 하여금 그 언어묘사과정에서 형성한 묘사에 기억을 의존하기 때문이라고 생각했다. 만약 어떤 사람의 외모에 대해서 그것을 묘사하면서 잘 못 기억하고 있다고 했을 때, 그러한 실수가 지속되어서 이후의 기억까지 왜곡시킬 수 있다. 이러한 재코딩recoding 간섭은 말로 묘사한 내용이 잘못된 기억의 가능성에 영향을 줄 수 있다는 점에서 부합한다. 예컨대, 확실하게 기억하는 내용에 대해서만 묘사하라고 하거나, 이름을 붙이기 어려운 encoding에 대해서 그것의 이름이 무엇인지 알려주면 이후의 기억 정확성이 향상된다.

When the verbal overshadowing effect was first re- ported, it was thought that verbalization impaired mem- ory by leading participants to rely on memory for their generated descriptions during the test. If participants misremembered an aspect of a person’s appearance while describing that person, the error might persist and distort later memory. This recoding interference account is con- sistent with findings that the contents of a verbal descrip- tion can influence the likelihood of misremembering. For example, warning participants only to describe details that they can confidently recall (Meissner, Brigham, & Kelley, 2001) or providing participants with the names that they generated at encoding for hard-to-name forms (Brandi- monte & Collina, 2008) have been shown to enhance sub- sequent memory accuracy.

그러나 몇몇 연구결과는 다른 기전이 언어의 뒤덮음 효과에 기여할 수 있음을 보여주었다. 

However, several findings suggest that other mecha- nisms must contribute to verbal overshadowing effects.

• 첫째, 묘사의 정확성과 언어의 뒤덮음 효과 사이에 관계가 불명확하다
  First, there is often little relationship between descrip- tion accuracy and verbal overshadowing (Fallshore & Schooler, l995; Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990; however, see Meissner et al., 2001).

• 둘째, (기억해야 하는 얼굴 말고 다른) 얼굴을 묘사하거나, 심지어 차를 묘사하는 과제를 수행한 이후에도 이후의 target face에 대한 인식(능력)이 손상되었다.
  Second, describing a different face (Dodson, Johnson, & Schooler, 1997) or even describing a car (Westerman & Larsen, 1997) can impair later recognition of a target face.

이러한 결과는 언어의 뒤덮음에 대한 다른 관점을 제시한다. 구체적으로는, 인코딩 과정의 모드가 정상적인 외형처리모드configural processing mode 에서 의식적 특성-기반 처리 모드conscious, feature-based processing로 전환된다는 것이다. 이러한 전이-부적합 프로세스 이론transfer-inappropriate processing theory 에 따라서, 언어로 표현될 수 있는 것에 제한이 가해지고, 이것이 연구대상자들로 하여금 두드러지는 특징discrete feature의 묘사에 집중하게 하면서, 한편으로는 일상적으로 인식(능력)에 도움이 되는 자극요소stimulus component들 사이의 perceptual relationship을 배제시키는 것이다.

These findings led to an alternate view that verbal overshadowing re- flects a shift in the type of processing used to recognize a perceptual stimulus. Specifically, the effect may reflect a change from the normal configural processing mode engaged during encoding to conscious, feature-based processing during the test. By this transfer-inappropriate processing theory (Schooler, 2002; Schooler, Fiore, & Brandimonte, 1997), limits on what can be expressed with language lead participants to focus their descrip- tions on discrete features (e.g., eye color, size of the nose) while excluding perceptual relationships between stimulus components that normally support recognition.

본 연구

The Present Experiment

운동능력의 기저에 깔린 절차적지식은 언어로 표현될 수 있는 것을 한참 넘어서기 때문에, 숙련된 수행능력을 묘사하는 것은 perceptual experience를 묘사하는 것과 유사한 수준의 어려운 과제일 수 있다. 만약 그렇다면, 어떤 스킬을 묘사하는 것이 그것의 retention을 손상시킬 것이다. 이러한 의식적 성찰과 숙련된 행동 사이의 부정적 관계를 보여주는 근거들이 있다. 스킬 습득 연구에서 중요한 개념idea중 하나는, 전문성개발은 말로 표현하기 쉬운 서술적기억표상declarative memory representations 을 말로 표현하기 어려운 절차적지식으로 바꿔가는 과정이라는 것이다. 이러한 전환의 결과 중 하나는 전문가가 어떤 스킬을 수행하면서 초보적인 단계에 집중하면, 오히려 그 스킬의 수행에 어려움을 겪을 것이라는 점이다. 이러한 관점과 일치하게, Beilock, Carr 등은 경험이 많은 골프선수에게 스윙의 특정 요소에 집중하게 만들면 퍼팅 수행능력이 손상됨을 보여주었다. 반대로 초심자들은 어떤 스킬 수행의 요소element에 집중하는 것이 도움이 되었다.

Because procedural knowledge under- lying a motor skill typically far exceeds what can be expressed verbally, describing memory for skilled per- formance might pose difficulties similar to describing a perceptual experience. If so, perhaps describing a skill will impair its retention. There is evidence consis- tent with this negative relationship between conscious reflection and skilled action. An important idea in skill acquisition research (Anderson, 1982; Fitts & Posner, 1967) is that development of expertise involves a shift from declarative memory representations that are easy to articulate to procedural knowledge that is difficult to put into words. One consequence of such a change is that performance might suffer when experts attend to the elementary steps of their proceduralized skill dur- ing execution (e.g., Baumeister, 1984; Beilock & Carr, 2001; Lewis & Linder, 1997). Consistent with this view, Beilock, Carr, et al. (2002) found that requiring experi- enced golfers to attend to a specific component of their swing impaired their performance in a putting task. Nov- ices, by contrast, benefit from focusing attention on ele- ments of skill execution (Beilock, Carr, et al., 2002) or the internal production of movement (Perkins-Ceccato, Passmore, & Lee, 2003; but see Wulf & Su, 2007).

이러한 사례들은 모두 스킬을 수행하는 도중에 그 자체에 집중하는 것의 영향을 연구한 것이다. 그러나, 단순히 어떤 스킬을 수행한 이후에 그 스킬에 대해서 언어적으로 생각해보는 것조차도 이후 스킬 수행을 방해할 수 있는가는 불분명하다. 만약 어떤 스킬을 수행하는 방식을 묘사하는 것이 이후 수행에 방해가 된다면, 언어의 뒤덮음 현상이 절차적지식에까지 확장되는 것이다.

These examples all involve attention to a skill during its ex- ecution, however; it is unclear whether simply thinking verbally about a skill offline disrupts later skilled per- formance. If describing the manner in which a skill is executed impairs later performance of that skill, it would extend the verbal overshadowing phenomenon to the do- main of procedural memory.

방법

METHOD

Participants

Materials

 

설계와 절차

Design and Procedure

Forty participants each were randomly assigned to the verbaliza- tion and to the no-verbalization conditions. Within each condition, 20 participants were assigned to each of the lower and higher skill conditions on the basis of their self-reported nine-hole golf score.

In the learning phase, the putting task was explained, and all par- ticipants were allowed as many trials as necessary (within an unre- vealed limit of 20 min) to reach the criterion of three consecutive on-target putts.

After learning, verbalizers spent 5 min writing a detailed descrip- tion of how they performed the task. These participants were advised to think back to everything that they focused on while putting and were instructed to “record every detail that you can remember, re- gardless of how insignificant it may strike you.”

 

Control participants (nonverbalizers) performed a verbal distractor task for the same duration, providing valence ratings for words with no association to golfing.

 

In the final test, all participants returned to the putting task, and were again allowed as many trials as needed to reach three consecutive on-target putts. The number of trials to reachieve the criterion was measured.

RESULTS

Learning Performance

 

Test Performance

 

 

Characteristics of Verbalization Content

 

 

 

 

고찰

DISCUSSION

이번 연구에서, 단순히 숙련된 운동능력을 묘사하는 것 만으로도 이후 수행에 부정적 영향을 주었다. 숙달된 골퍼가 5분을 투자했을 뿐인데, 관련없는 과제를 수행한 대조군보다 2배의 퍼팅을 하게 되었다. 반대로, 초보 골퍼는 verbalization에 영향을 받지 않았고, 오히려 약간 이득이 있었다. 이러한 고스킬 골퍼와 저스킬 골퍼 사이의 차이는 verbalization한 양이나 유형에 영향을 받는 것은 아닌 것으로 보인다. 따라서, performer가 높은 수준의 proceduralized knowledge가 있지 않는 한 verbalization 그 자체가 스킬의 수행을 손상시키는 것은 아니다. 이러한 결과는 perceptual experience에서의 episodic memory연구 결과와도 마찬가지이다.

In the present experiment, we demonstrated that merely describing one’s skilled motor performance could impair the execution of that skill later on. When higher skill golf- ers spent 5 min describing their recent putting experience, they took twice as many putts to reachieve the putting criterion on a later test than did control participants who spent 5 min performing an unrelated verbal activity. In contrast, lower skill golfers were not measurably affected by verbalization and, if anything, slightly benefited rela- tive to lower skill control participants. This difference be- tween higher and lower skill golfers appears unrelated to the amount or type of verbalization content. Thus, verbal description by itself does not impair skill execution, un- less the performer possesses a higher degree of procedur- alized knowledge. These results accord well with verbal overshadowing findings concerning episodic memory for perceptual experiences.

비록 이전 연구가 운동능력을 지나치게 생각하는 것overthinking이 부정적인 효과를 가진다고 지적하긴 했지만, 이번 연구에서는 그러한 효과가 offline에서도 발생함을 보여준 첫 번째 연구이다. 스킬을 수행하는 동안 자신의 스킬에 대해서 생각하는 것이 이중-과제 간섭dual task interference를 일으키는 것은 직관적으로 생각했을 때 말이 되나, 스킬을 수행한 이후에 그것을 생각하는 것도 안 좋은 영향을 준다는 것은 놀라운 사실이다. 실제로, 고스킬 골퍼들은 수행능력이 떨어졌다. 이러한 offline impairment는 이중-과제 간섭에 대한 기존의 해석에 새로운 것을 제안한다. 이전에는 shared process 혹은 capacity의 경쟁 때문에 발생한다고 생각했다. 비록 이번 연구결과가 그러한 요인이 없다는 것을 보여준 것은 아니지만, 그것보다는 보다 지속적인 어떤 요인이 있는 것으로 보인다. 의식적 성찰conscious reflection은 기저의 표상에 지속적인 변화를 가할 수도 있다. 실제로, 그러한 지속적 효과는 episodic memory에 대한 언어의 뒤덮음 효과를 보여준 많은 경우에 유사하게 일어났다.

Although prior work has documented the negative ef- fects of overthinking on motor performance, the present study is the first to demonstrate that such effects occur after thinking about performance offline. Whereas it may seem intuitive that consciously reflecting on one’s skill during execution would cause dual-task interference, it is surprising that simply describing one’s skill after the fact can be so disruptive. Indeed, our higher skill golfers were reduced to the performance level of our lower skill golfers after verbalizing for only 5 min. The observation of such offline impairment suggests new interpretations of previ- ous work on dual-task interference in skilled performance, which previously would have been attributed to impaired execution resulting from competition for shared processes or capacity. Although the present findings do not negate such factors, they indicate that something more enduring may also occur: Conscious reflection may induce persist- ing changes in access to the underlying representations. Indeed, the prediction that such persisting effects might occur followed by analogy from the many instances of verbal overshadowing in episodic memory.

무엇이 이 지속적 손상을 일으키는 것일까?

What produces this enduring impairment?

 

• 한 가지 메커니즘은 처리모드 간 경쟁이다. 절차적지식과 서술적지식을 처리하는 신경시스템은 경쟁적으로 상호작용한다. 서술적지식에 열심히 몰두vigorously engaging하는 것이 일시적으로 절차적학습 시스템을 방해할 수 있다. 이 관점에서 얼굴을 묘사하는 것이 묘사하지 않은 얼굴의 retention까지 손상시킨다는 연구결과와 같이, 언어로 묘사한 스킬 뿐 아니라 묘사하지 않은 스킬까지 손상시킬 수도 있음을 추측하게 한다. 이러한 결과는 또한 "숨막히는 압박choking under pressure"와 같이 스트레스 상황에서 숙련된 운동선수가 스킬에 초점을 둔 집중이 늘어날 수 있는 근거가 된다.
  One pos- sible mechanism is global competition between modes of processing analogous to that proposed by the transfer- inappropriate processing hypothesis of verbal overshad- owing (Schooler, 2002). In fact, research on learning sys- tems in animals and humans suggests such a hypothesis, indicating that the neural systems mediating procedural and declarative learning competitively interact (Poldrack et al., 2001; Poldrack & Packard, 2003). For example, le- sions to medial temporal lobe structures in animals im- prove procedural learning. Similarly, functional neuroim- aging studies have shown that humans disengage medial temporal lobe activity after practice on a skill-learning task. If Poldrack and colleagues’ hypothesis is correct, vigorously engaging declarative memory (as in a 5-min period of intensive verbal retrieval and description) should temporarily disrupt procedural learning systems. If so, the present effects may constitute the first behavioral evi- dence for the competitive learning systems hypothesis in humans. One intriguing prediction of this view is that ver- bal description should impair not only the described skill, but also other nondescribed skills acquired in the same session, much as verbally describing a face impairs reten- tion of nondescribed faces (Dodson et al., 1997). Compe- tition between explicit and implicit learning systems has also been investigated in categorization tasks that require integration of information according to rules that are dif- ficult to verbalize (Maddox & Ashby, 2004). Such differ- ential effects of rule-based and procedural learning have been suggested to contribute to “choking under pressure” (Markman, Maddox, & Worthy, 2006), which offers an in- teresting account of evidence that stressful situations can increase skill-focused attention in experienced athletes (Baumeister, 1984; Beilock & Carr, 2001; Gray, 2004).

• 스킬에 초점을 둔 집중skill-focused attention의 파괴적 효과가 남아있을 수 있다. 절차화된 스킬 중 언어로 표현한 요소에 대한 집중attending이 남아있음으로써, 기저에 깔린 표상을 각각의 요소로 decompile하는 변화를 주었을 수 있다. 스킬의 요소 중 말로 묘사한 것에 집중하는 편향이 지속되면서 이후에 그것을 수행할 때 online interference를 일어킬 수 있다. 그러나 단순히 어떤 스킬의 요소에 집중하는 것 자체로는 충분하지 않으며, 그 행동에 대한 기억을 말로 표현하는 것verbalizing이 결정적이다.
  A second explanation for our results is a residual dis- ruptive effect of skill-focused attention prior to task ex- ecution. Verbalization required participants to focus atten- tion on the elements of their skilled performance, similar to instructions to continuously monitor one component of a golf putting or soccer dribbling task in the study by Beilock, Carr, et al. (2002). In our study, as in that one, attention to the component actions (as must occur during the act of verbalization) hurt skilled participants’ perfor-mance and modestly improved the performance of nov-ices. Perhaps attending to the (verbalizable) components of a proceduralized skill induces enduring changes to the underlying representation by decompiling it into its con-stituent parts, as proposed by Masters (1992). Alterna-tively, verbalization may not affect the procedural repre-sentation, but may instead induce a lingering attentional bias toward the described components of the skill. Simply paying more attention to what one has just described may cause online interference during the final test session, yielding results like those observed by Beilock, Carr, et al. (2002). We must emphasize, however, that attention to the components of the skill by itself may not be enough; verbalizing memory for the action may be critical for im-pairing later performance. In the verbal overshadowing domain, related findings have shown, for example, that mental imagery of a perceptual stimulus is not sufficient to produce verbal overshadowing, implicating verbal pro-cessing as integral to this kind of memory error (Fiore & Schooler, 2002; Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). 

교수자 자신이 스스로 가르치는 내용에 능숙해지는 만큼, 그 스킬에 대해서 성찰하고 그 스킬의 기본을 말로 설명하는 것이 수행능력에 안 좋은 영향을 줄 수 있다. 가르치는 사람은, 막상 그 만큼 잘 하지 못한다.

Whatever the mechanistic basis, the present finding in- dicates that simply verbally expressing one’s recent motor action may sow the seeds of poor execution during later performance. This observation may have repercussions for athletes, who depend on effective mental techniques to prepare for their events (e.g., implicit learning in a gym- nastics routine can be disrupted by verbalization, as shown by Brandimonte, Coluccia, & Baldanza, 2008). Equally, sports coaches and other physical activity instructors may wish to reconsider their opinions on strategies for impart- ing knowledge about motor control. Whereas verbalization assists in the early stages of acquiring a skill, it may im- pede progress once an intermediate skill level is attained. To the extent that instructors themselves are skilled in what they teach, the recurring need to reflect upon and articulate the basis of their skill may pose costs to their performance. Indeed, unless a concentrated effort is made to maintain one’s procedural expertise, the verbalization necessary for teaching may hasten a decline in skill, suggesting a new view of an old adage: Those who teach, cannot do.

 

 

 

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Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Oct;15(5):927-32. doi: 10.3758/PBR.15.5.927.

Overthinking skilled motor performance: or why those who teach can't do.

Flegal KE1, Anderson MC.

Author information

• 1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA. kflegal@umich.edu

Abstract

Skilled athletes often maintain that overthinking disrupts performance of their motor skills. Here, we examined whether these experiences have a basis in verbal overshadowing, a phenomenon in which describing memories for ineffable perceptual experiences disrupts later retention. After learning a unique golf-putting task, golfers of low and intermediate skill either described their actions in detail or performed an irrelevant verbal task. They then performed the putting task again. Strikingly, describing their putting experience significantly impaired higher skill golfers' ability to reachieve the putting criterion, compared with higher skill golfers who performed the irrelevant verbal activity. Verbalization had no such effect, however, for lower skill golfers. These findings establish that the effects of overthinking extend beyond dual-task interference and may sometimes reflect impacts on long-term memory. We propose that these effects are mediated by competition between procedural and declarative memory, as suggested by recent work in cognitive neuroscience.

PMID:

 

18926983

 

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]