Written by Peter Joffe
“The idea came to me in a flash, because at that particular moment it was the best solution for situation I was in. There are impulses that arise because your technical and tactical knowledge has become so great that your legs are able to respond immediately to what your head wants them to do. Even if that‘s nothing more than a flash in the brain.”
Johan Cruyff
Dying minutes of 1970 World Cup final. After a brilliant sequence of passes and moves ball came to Pele at approximately ten meters outside the Italian box. He controlled it for a few seconds against a defender and then, without looking, rolled it out to the right, just in time for arriving Brazilian captain Carlos Alberto smashed it to the left-down corner of the Italian goal. It was one of the finest moments in the history of World Cups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5HbmeNKino
However, let’s leave alone the beauty of that goal and try to understand from a scientific and coaching perspective how Pele could make that pass? What kind of qualities did he possess to simultaneously keep the ball, monitor the defender, and calculate Carlos Alberto’s speed and position without even looking at him? Are these qualities inherited, or can we train that?
It looks like nowadays sports games reached their highest. Such sports like football, basketball, rugby, ice-hockey, tennis, etc. attract millions of spectators and billions of investments. As a consequence of that, the furiosity of competition and level of player’s preparedness has risen dramatically. To find a gap for improvements and to gain even a small advantage becomes more and more difficult.
So, where these possibilities may still be found? Well, it is still possible in physical conditioning. In my previous article I suggested that footballers don’t achieve the limits set by the track and field athletes. Perhaps, even greater potential can be found in decision making. For example, effectively using all team work possibilities can bring enormous benefits in team games. That demands that every individual part of the system (player) act efficiently and make decisions that are beneficial for the team. It is necessary to note that such decisions should be made under tremendous physical, psychological, and time pressure. In the presented article, I will discuss contemporary scientific ideas about decision-making in sports games and possible ways for developing creativity in players.
Creativity in sport: what is it?
Creativity may be defined as the ability to produce original ideas and actions with flexibility and fluency. Originality refers to the unusualness and novelty of creation. Flexibility helps find different solutions for the same situation, and fluency refers to producing such solutions effortlessly and quickly (Memmert, 2011). However, in contrast to arts, where there are infinite possibilities for generating new ways and forms of expression, sports creativity should ultimately lead to one goal – victory. And this means scoring goals and points.
Hence, a new addition to the definition of creativity in sport is needed: it should be appropriate (Memmert, 2011). We don’t need originality if it leads to defeat. Possibly, the essential difference between creativity in arts and sports is that artist searches for and creates new ideas. In contrast, the player has to choose from already existing options one, most effective in the current situation. It would be great if these decisions are original and entertain the public, but only if they are appropriate can a player become a star. If they are not, he ends up on a bench. Perhaps, in sport, we shouldn’t separate creativity from decision-making, because continually deciding how to act and choosing the best solutions, we create the Game.
How we make decisions in sport.
Dual-processing theory in Psychology (Evans & Stanovich, 2013) suggests that we process information and act in two ways in real life. One is automated, without the demand of conscious attention, and we use it for well-learned actions. Another way is for information and actions which demand consciousness for control. In real life, we rarely use these ways separately, and in most situations, our actions are a combination of both ways (the most popular example is driving a car). The same is true for the sport’s field, so it would be reasonable to apply dual-processing theory there (Philip Furley, Schweizer, & Bertrams, 2015).
For a better description of decision-making in the game, I would like to use an analogy that seems appropriate in this case – building a house. In this process, an architect can create different buildings from the same standard material; let’s say bricks. Some similarities are in decision-making. To make and implement our decisions on a pitch, we use building material— automated and standardised skills (bricks) or even bigger automated chunks of skills (building blocks).
For example, every player can dribble the ball, control it, and make passes without thinking. He even performs some tactical patterns (e.g.one-two combination in football) automatically. Actually, one of the main goals in sports training is to create robust and reliable automated technical-tactical skills. The next question is: what is the player going to build from this material or, in other words, what kind of decisions he/she is going to make and be able to implement? The player needs to choose “project” and realise it under severe time and opponent pressure in a dynamic, continually changing environment.
Building a simple and standard house is probably much easier; it is why this kind of decision is predominant in the game; however, they are predictable, and opponents may anticipate them. So, in some cases, you should take a risk and build something more original.
Who is an architect?
Continuing our analogy with the building process, it would be really useful to know who is actually in charge. Who is an architect responsible for choosing the project and supervising its realisation? Possibly it is the responsibility of Working Memory (WM). WM can be described as:”… the cognitive mechanisms capable of retaining a small amount of information in an active state for use in ongoing tasks” (Philip Furley & Wood).
WM integrates sensory information (what we feel, hear and see) , our online processing system (short-term memory, where we can keep limited information for a short period), and our experience (long-term memory, where information is kept basically forever). The close analogy may be RAM in computers, though the mechanistic approach probably not completely appropriate. WM capacity seems to be positively correlated with fluid intelligence (ability to deal with new tasks), reasoning, and learning (Yuan, Steedle, Shavelson, Alonzo, & Oppezzo, 2006).
Debates about WM structure, functions, and its role in processing information are attracting more and more research in the present time. It is beyond the scope of this article and beyond my qualification to debate WM in detail. For this article, it is important that WM decides what the house should be built, chooses appropriate bricks and blocks, monitors execution, and makes necessary adjustments. All these it manages to do in seconds or even in a split second. It is not completely clear how it makes that. However, some guesses are possible.
How it may work.
So let’s go back to Pele’s example.
Before he received the ball, he quickly looked at Carlos Alberto’s position and noticed the beginning of his move (from Carlos Alberto recollection). Then Pele didn’t look at Alberto any more however continued to track him mentally by having a visual image of Alberto movement in his WM. He kept the ball and controlled the Italian defender, mostly automatically that didn’t tax his WM too much because his skills of controlling the ball against an opponent were learned to perfection. The bigger is the automated part of processing the more attention can be allocated to the most important information.
Due to his great instinctive technical and physical capacities, Pele had enough WM resources to process his captain’s movement and calculate the time and place of his arrival. He used his experience (long-term memory) for such calculation because he already met similar situations before (from Pele recollection). Actually, he did something similar in the previous game against Uruguay: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKb9uGKHeEU . Finally, he (again automatically) adjusted his pass’s power and direction, making the ball meet Carlos Alberto in the perfect time and spot for the killer’s shot.
Now we can see that a lot is going on behind simple and beautiful decisions. However, even this is an oversimplification of processes going in a player’s mind in a few seconds of decision-making and realisation. Why a player gives the ball to one teammate while, at the same time, ignores a call from another? Do technically more advanced players make better decisions? What can impair our decision-making?
Hiring an architect.
Now imagine that you are an employer who wants to hire an architect for multiple building projects. You are going to interview candidates. So what in their abilities will you be interested in most? Possibly, you will be interested in their knowledge of working materials (bricks and blocks). Definitely, you will ask about experience. Don’t forget that your architect will be working under tremendous pressure. It will be direct physical contact with an opponent, time constraints, and psychological stress.
Another important thing is that your architect must quickly build a house in a dynamic environment and choose the most appropriate in particular circumstances project. So he/she has to have abilities for multitasking: monitoring the current situation, keep in mind tactical development which is currently beyond his visual field, and at the same time searching his library-experience for a suitable project. So, will you be interested in checking this? Is it possible to test that beyond a playing ground?
Bricks.
A good architect knows what kind of material he needs for his/her project and what he/she really has. Yes, this material is, to some extent, standard, but its quality and design are different for different players. For example, every player can control the ball. However, as Cruyff put it: “… great player does that with one touch, a good player with two and bad one needs three”.The more robust, diverse, and fine-tuned technical and physical skills player possesses, the more original and effective may be his/her decisions.
The decision-making architect calculates what kind of project can be realised in a particular environment. That includes analysing the current tactical position, predicting an opponent’s actions, and player own ability to implement the decision. Then the architect chooses the option that has chances for success though it may be risky and original. It is called the “affordance” of the action. Some researchers argue that decision-making is inseparable from the calculation of affordance (Craig & Watson, 2011). This process of analysis is mostly unconscious, and experts “think with their legs”. Possibly, we are even unaware of decisions that we have no chances to realise.
Experience.
Not only the skill’s availability influences our decision making. The great role has our previous experience, which is stored in long-term memory ( LTM). Most researchers found that expert players, though are not superior to a beginner in general perceptive abilities, nevertheless, in the sport-specific environment, can act much more quickly and efficiently.
In the real game, the player’s WM rapidly compares the current situation with the LTM’s library of the previous similar ones and chooses the most suitable solution supported by earlier positive feedback. Of course, situations are always different, but many patterns inside them are more or less similar. Another quality of high-level players is that they don’t search their libraries randomly. They know precisely which “shelf” possible solution may be. That refers to their ability to extract valuable cues from current information, make correct predictions about the situation’s development, and connect this information with the exact needed LTM location.
The bigger the library player has and the better his extraction abilities, the more chances he has to extract the closest similar example from LTM and implement the most effective solution almost automatically. This experience is not only what do we know theoretically but what we actually did before. The theory of embodied cognition suggests that we better understand actions and situations when we have previous experience of physically acting in them (Beilock, 2008). Of course, experts have many more actions and information in their libraries; thus their decisions are quicker and better.
Attentional control.
Another crucial role of our architect is to maintain attention to relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant. In a game, the player is often overwhelmed by information flow and cannot make effective decisions without filtering it. The filtering process is not necessary based on the salience of the stimuli (e.g., who louder calls for the ball) but on working memory content. It is called biased competition (Philip Alexander Furley & Memmert, 2010). WM biases competition between different attentional stimuli towards that one, which is considered more relevant.
This WM bias may depend on the player’s personality, previous experience, or coach’s tactical guidance; however, other factors can influence it. Among those are emotional state, stress, and ability to suppress automated responses. Situations in the game are always different, and sometimes the player needs to ignore tactical guidance and overturn instinctive actions. Possibly, players with greater WM capacities are better in that.
Stress-resistance.
Stress may greatly influence the decision-making process. It is possible in three ways.
First of all, it can break the bricks. Possibly this may sound strange because bricks are automated skills and shouldn’t be vulnerable to stress. However, it may happen through the process of reinvestment (Masters & Maxwell, 2008). Under stress, the athlete directs his/her attention towards the execution of skills, which should otherwise be performed automatically. That can impair fluidity and coherency of the action, thus compromise realisation of decision. Then, through negative feedback, this failed realisation can bias the future decision-making process. The athlete may be afraid to choose risky decisions again due to a lack of self-confidence. Interestingly, in reinvestment, time pressure maybe even beneficial because the athlete just has no time for reinvesting. It can be worse when he has time to think (e.g., taking a penalty or tennis serve).
The second way of negative stress influence is the flow of unrelated thoughts, which may reduce WM capacity. It is similar to giving WM an additional task. While WM is trying to cope with these distracting thoughts, it has fewer resources for the primary task (making decisions). Perhaps, this is a reason for making simpler, intuitive decisions under stress.
Some coaches have the opinion that more creative players are more vulnerable to stress. From my point of view, it is not true. Probably, impairment of decisions for creative players may be more noticeable than for players who made only standard choices in every situation. Secondly, if standard decisions are not working under pressure, non-creative (low WM) players may struggle even more because they have no other options in their arsenal.
And finally, changes in attention under stressful conditions can influence a decision-making process. Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007) predicts that stress makes our attention more driven by stimuli than a goal. Thus distracting stimuli (shouting on the pitch, opponent’s deceptions, etc.) can become more significant.
Sometimes, stressed athletes have “tunnelled” attention focused on most threatening stimuli and cannot see better options beyond his/her very narrow attentional spectrum. That is similar to the previous idea of limited WM recourses under stress. In this case, this is an attentional resource. However, in both cases, a more powerful WM memory can help maintain attention despite the distracting influence and may have enough resources to process a broader spectrum of information.
General WM abilities.
There are batteries of computer or paper-based tests that aim to investigate general WM abilities. These include the ability to keep in mind information (short-term memory), to keep attentional focus at the information in short-term memory, and, at the same time, process another information (multitasking) and ability to control attention.
We can test the ability to keep visual or phonological information and solve different kinds of cognitive problems (Shipstead, Lindsey, Marshall, & Engle, 2014). However, the question is: are all these tests relevant to our architect’s job – to make and implement decisions in sports games? Are general WM abilities relevant to its domain-specific responsibilities?
Another problem is how we can scientifically evaluate decision-making itself. The most common sports science method is to present a tactical situation that is a frozen moment before decision should be made. The player makes his/her decision, and then a panel of experts evaluates it. I don’t think this static method reflects a dynamic and changeable environment in the real game. Some researchers tried to address affordance and embodied cognition issues in these tests (e.g., included some physical actions, not only verbal response), but I doubt that it can be done to the same extent as in dynamic, real game situations. So, in my opinion, success on the pitch, though, is a subjective indicator, remains the best criterion of the player’s decision-making effectiveness.
There were attempts to investigate the relationship between general WM capacity and its specific ability to make sports decisions. As is often the case in Sport Psychology, the results are controversial. For example, Furley and Memmert found no correlation between general WM capacity and decision-making (P. Furley & Memmert, 2015). The latter was tested by frozen video pictures and a panel of experts. However, the same group of researchers found a significant correlation between WM and ice hockey players’ ability to make their own appropriate tactical judgements and actions even despite inappropriate coach’s instruction (Philip A Furley & Memmert, 2012).
The reason for controversy in all these findings may be hiding in the nature of the decision-making task. For example, some tasks, for example, suppressing interference from irrelevant stimuli or not following the coach’s instructions blindly, may benefit from higher general WM capacity, whereas others (e.g., choosing original tactical solution) may not. Another reason may be that our architect’s abilities are highly specific. Their knowledge and skills relevant to their field do not always transfer to general WM capacity or vice-versa.
Finally, it is impossible to separate in real-life players’ decision-making capacity from his technical skills, experience, physical conditioning, and tactical education. In summary, it is more likely that some specific rather than general WM capacities may benefit the sports decision-making process. Thus, when you interview architects for the sport’s job, possibly, it makes no sense to give them a pen and paper, give them a ball instead.
Training WM.
Well, in real life we are not hiring our architect to do the job. We have what we have. So, important question is: whether we can train WM or not?
Training for improving general WM capacity.
There are some computer’s based methods that claim to increase WM capacity. Most promoted of them is Cogmed software. Trainees perform a series of exercises that include visual-spatial tasks, phonological tasks, mental arithmetic, etc. Some authors questioned the Cogmed programme’s effectiveness in improving WM capacity (Shipstead, Hicks, & Engle, 2012). Others argue that such training can improve WM capacity, as measured with standard tests but not improve fluid intelligence. It seems that intelligence may be influenced not only by WM capacity but also by other factors (Yuan, et al., 2006).
Considering the sports games, I doubt that exercises on the computer’s screen are related to real-game situations. However, people say that Messi was invincible in PlayStation, and, in his autobiography, Cruyff claimed that he was good in mental arithmetic. I am not sure that it is the reason for their greatness. But if the player has time and desire to play computer games or do the math, why not?
Sport’s training.
As it was stated before, decision-making depends on the interaction between different factors and demands technique, physical qualities, and experience. Possibly the best way to develop these is sport’s training itself if such activity promotes and facilitates creativity.
Though even the standard training process does improve decision-making by gaining technical skills and creating the experience, it may not be enough to develop an effective decision-maker.
Unfortunately, standard coaching practice very often separated skills acquisition and decision making. When coaches teach technique, they often create an artificial environment where the technique’s implementation objectives are vague, opposition, and challenges are not presented. It makes learning easier at the start, but later learners will be struggling to execute these skills in real situations.
Yes, I stated before that only that decisions can be made that can afford the necessary skills for its implementation. However, this is a two-way process. When a child starts to learn a sports game his/her library’s shelves are empty, and it will be useful to put new acquisitions (technical skills) on the right shelves (situations where skills can be used) straight away.
When we teach kids techniques, we should create situations where these skills are helpful— situational challenges that demand technique to resolve the problem. I can call this “created need”, borrowing this term from the economy. Doing that, we can integrate skills acquisition into the decision-making process and vice-versa. That makes both processes more implicit and natural. Of course, this method demands from coaches to be creative and to invent exercises which, although challenging but, at the same time, are feasible for the learner, thus encourage searching for new decisions and techniques with a positive outcome.
Another problem with the standard training is “over teaching”. That is when the coach gives instructions on every step of his/her students. That can directly influence a kid’s WM development by narrowing their attention. High-class players have a broader attentional spectrum than the ordinary ones; thus, they can see hidden options. Instructions facilitate focused attention, making life more comfortable initially, but such an approach may be detrimental to player development. Conversely, a coach who creates exercises that developed broader awareness and freedom of creativity in his/her students, is working for the future (Memmert & Furley, 2007).
It is important that developing creativity starts early in childhood when the brain’s plasticity, number, and density of connections between neurons are very high (Wass, Scerif, & Johnson, 2012). Then creative thinking will be integrated into the player’s mind. Between the age of 7 and 10, children are very susceptive to divergent thinking and ready for exploration (Memmert, 2011). Coaches should avoid too much structure in their exercises initially and encourage children to actively search for solutions, not just give solutions to them. Though such training sessions look less organised, only then creativity becomes natural. You can introduce structure and tactical discipline later.
Training imaginary abilities.
When we consciously imagine an action, we activate the same brain areas involved in unconscious planning and execution. It is called Functional Equivalence. Of course, there is no complete equivalence between imagining the action and executing it, but overlapping is significant. So, the tantalising possibility arises: maybe we can train creativity and decision-making inside our minds, without performing that physically? Well, probably imaginary is no substitution for decision-making training on a pitch but definitely can assist it (Cumming & Williams, 2012) .
Imaginary in sports training can be helpful in two ways. First is psychological, when imaginary can facilitate self-regulation. That can improve decision-making through increasing stress- resistance and might help control attention. The second way is to imagine actions that are still difficult for us in reality, thus facilitating learning. Even more, sometimes, our imagination can create a new experience.
Teachers and coaches can improve imaginary abilities in their students.
Observation of the best examples may be helpful. Perhaps it is not accidental that great football cultures like, for example, Brazil and Argentina, continuously produce great players who share the same creative traditions.
Filming young athletes’ performance can help them learn imagining themselves from a third-person perspective, thus allowing different angles and views of the image. It would be useful to create a detailed image that may include weather, surfaces, clothes, and equipment, making imaging more vivid and real.
Teaching imagination should use a wide range of modalities: visual, auditory, and tactile. An individual approach is a necessity. Teaching children art, painting, and music may be useful for their sports success as well. Movement’s diversity is necessary. Children 5-6 years old can already perform the movement’s imaginary (Cumming & Williams, 2012). However, because they are not kinesthetically skilful, this imaginary ability is not fully developed until 14 years old. Hence, the cultivation of wide and comprehensive movement skills can improve kinesthetic imagination and facilitate creativity.
Meditation.
Orient philosophy becomes increasingly popular in the West in recent times. Not surprisingly that the key method of oriental spiritual practices – meditation draws great attention in the field of sport as well.
Meditation can be described as a complex of emotional and attentional regulatory training (Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008)
Possibly one of the mains goals of this practice is the development of mindfulness.
“Mindfulness is a mental mode characterised by full attention to present-moment experience without judgment, elaboration, or emotional reactivity” (Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, & Gelfand, 2010)
Concerning training attention, there are basically two styles of meditation: focus meditation and open-monitoring meditation (Lutz, et al., 2008). Former associates with a concentration of attention on the chosen object. The latter refers to unemotional and nonreactive online monitoring of thoughts and experiences without paying attention to something particular.
Meditation can help decision-making by reducing the occurrence of distracting thoughts and negative emotions (Jha, et al., 2010). As was mentioned before, these thoughts and emotions, especially in stressful situations, can decrease WM capacity and impair a decision-making process. These are benefits of open-monitoring training.
Another great advantage of meditation is that it develops the ability to control attention against distraction and concentrate on chosen goals. That may come from focused attention training.
Interestingly, focused attention training can help in imaginary (Kozhevnikov, Louchakova, Josipovic, & Motes, 2009), visual discrimination, and attentional vigilance (MacLean et al., 2010).
Even though meditation is a very serious and difficult practice that demands a high level of concentration, children can learn some simple form of it. That may include exercises on breath control, sensory activation, thought mindfulness, body, and emotional awareness (Napoli, Krech, & Holley, 2005). Authors found that meditation significantly improved children’s ability to control attention, which is an important part of the decision-making process.
Arts and music.
Some researchers suggest a positive correlation between WM capacity and the ability to apprehend art and create improvisation in music. For example, Sherman, with colleagues, found that subjects with greater visual WM capacities can understand painting better (Sherman, Grabowecky, & Suzuki, 2015) . Higher WM cellists could create better improvisations (De Dreu, Nijstad, Baas, Wolsink, & Roskes, 2012). The latter was connected with the better attentional abilities in higher WM individuals.
Does this mean that exercising arts and music can improve WM? Well, this doesn’t follow directly, but such idea is plausible. In any way, art and music can facilitate comprehensive development, which is good for any person, including athletes.
Conclusion.
Now we can see that decision-making in sport is a very complex process. It integrates many variables that interact with each other and influence an outcome. These variables are WM capacity, experience, technical skills and physical potential, tactical education, emotional state, and stress-resistance.
To some extent, the quality of these variables may depend on genes. For example, Miller and colleagues suggested that WM capacity for processing information is limited by oscillatory brain rhythms (Miller & Buschman, 2015). Possibly, this is an inherited limitation. Players, who became great, usually possess valuable physical assets, which may be, in some part, inherited as well.
However, it is clear that creativity may be and has to be trained.
A highly creative player has to possess great technique, and his/her physical abilities should be perfect. You cannot implement creative ideas in the contemporary sport without being strong, endurable, and agile. That can be trained.
Ecologically valid training, when exercises are designed to mimic real-game situations, is the best way to integrate skills acquisition into decision-making. Children have to learn technique together with simple tactical patterns. The coach has to develop exercises that widen the player’s attention, not narrowing it. That means fewer coaching instructions. Let kids make their own decisions and mistakes.
In my opinion, a player may benefit from being a comprehensively developed person. Being educated in arts, practicing meditation, and imaginary skills can improve decision-making through divergent thinking, emotional and attentional control, and stress-resistance.
And finally, the right motivation for practicing sport, which is based on self-development, exploration, and generosity rather than on a desire to win at any cost, can release pressure and frees players’ minds for creativity.
Does it look like everything is more or less clear with creativity in sport?
Ok, then have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UzRsvCsC4c
I read about this episode when I was a child, though I didn’t see it , and imagined how it was in reality a hundred times. I watched it for the first time in the film “This is Pele” when I was already twenty. It was far beyond my expectations! Do you see that he deliberately aimed to the far corner predicting that the defender will be running to cover the more obvious aim — the near corner? Amazing! Now I am a sport scientist and experienced coach, and I know something about decision-making in the game…
So, how he did that? I don’t know…
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