Sports Psychology II: Group Dynamics, Group Cohesion and Leadership in Sports, Cognitive Processes, Memory and Thinking, the Principles of Motor Skill Learning, the Transfer of Training and its Types, Long-Term and Short-Term Psychological Preparation for Competition, Psychological Skill Training for Activation and Relaxation, and Spectators and Sports Performance

The information-processing view treats the athlete as a processor of information in three stages: stimulus identification (perceiving the ball's speed and spin), response selection (deciding which shot to play) and response programming (organising the movement). Memory has three stores: sensory memory holds a large amount of information for a fraction of a second, and selective attention passes a little of it on; short-term (working) memory holds about seven, plus or minus two, items for up to about 30 seconds unless rehearsed; long-term memory holds knowledge and motor programmes almost without limit. Thinking and decision-making in sport draw on pattern recognition built up by experience: an expert reads the play from fewer, earlier cues. Reaction time, the interval between a stimulus and the start of the response, increases with the number of possible choices (Hick's law), and a second stimulus arriving very soon after the first delays the response to it, the psychological refractory period that dummies and feints exploit.

Motor learning is a relatively permanent change in the capability for skilled movement resulting from practice or experience, inferred from performance. Fitts and Posner (1967) described three stages: the cognitive stage, in which the learner works out what to do, makes many errors and needs demonstration and simple instructions; the associative stage, in which the learner refines the movement, errors fall and feedback on technique helps; and the autonomous stage, in which the skill is automatic and attention is freed for tactics. Skills are classified as open (performed in a changing environment, such as a football pass) or closed (in a stable environment, such as a free throw); discrete, serial or continuous; gross or fine; and self-paced or externally paced. Practice can be massed (few, short rests) or distributed (more rest), whole or part, and blocked (one skill repeated) or random (skills mixed): random practice slows performance during practice but produces better retention and transfer, the contextual interference effect. Feedback may be intrinsic (from one's own senses) or extrinsic (augmented, from a coach or video), and extrinsic feedback may give knowledge of results (the outcome) or knowledge of performance (the quality of the movement). Thorndike's laws of readiness, exercise and effect, and the learning curve with its plateau, belong to the same subject.

Transfer is the influence of learning or practising one skill on the learning or performance of another. Positive transfer occurs when earlier learning helps, as when the throwing action helps the javelin or the badminton footwork helps squash; negative transfer occurs when it hinders, as when the flexible wrist action of badminton interferes with the firmer wrist of tennis strokes; zero transfer occurs when there is no effect. Bilateral transfer (cross-education) is transfer from one limb to the other, which is why practising with the non-dominant hand after the dominant one is easier than starting fresh. Proactive transfer is the effect of an earlier skill on a later one, and retroactive transfer the effect of a later skill on the retention of an earlier one. Transfer can also run from practice to competition, from part to whole, and from mental practice to physical performance.

Three classical theories explain transfer. Thorndike's theory of identical elements holds that transfer depends on the number of elements two tasks share, so practice conditions should resemble the game. Judd's theory of generalisation holds that transfer comes from understanding general principles that apply across tasks, so learners should be taught why, not just how. The Gestalt theory of transposition holds that transfer comes from perceiving the whole pattern or relationship. The implications for physical education are to teach skills in a sensible sequence so that each builds on the last, to make practice resemble competition, to point out similarities and differences between skills explicitly, to teach underlying principles, to avoid teaching two easily confused skills at the same time, and to learn each skill well, since transfer from a poorly learned skill is small.

Psychological preparation for competition works on two time scales. Long-term preparation, spread across the training year and planned alongside physical periodisation, builds psychological skills through a psychological skill training (PST) programme: an education phase (why the skills matter), an acquisition phase (learning techniques such as goal setting, imagery, self-talk, relaxation and concentration routines) and a practice phase (automating them and using them in simulated and real competition). It also develops motivation, confidence, coping with setbacks and team cohesion. Short-term preparation, in the days and minutes before an event, includes a pre-competition routine, arousal regulation to the individual's optimal zone, focusing on process cues rather than outcome, positive self-talk and imagery of successful performance, and plans for coping with likely distractions.

Psychological skill training for activation (psyching up) is used when arousal is too low, as in a routine early-round match or a long training session: energising imagery, energising self-talk and cue words ("explode", "drive"), increased breathing rate, pep talks, music with a fast tempo, physical activity in the warm-up and goal reminders. Training for relaxation is used when arousal or anxiety is too high. Somatic techniques act on the body: Edmund Jacobson's progressive muscular relaxation (1938), in which muscle groups are tensed and released in turn so that the athlete learns to recognise and release tension; controlled diaphragmatic breathing; and biofeedback, which displays heart rate, muscle tension or skin conductance so that the athlete learns to control them. Cognitive techniques act on the mind: autogenic training (Johannes Schultz), which uses self-suggestion of warmth and heaviness in the limbs; meditation and mindfulness; imagery of calm scenes; thought-stopping and cognitive restructuring of negative thoughts. The choice is matched to the kind of anxiety: somatic techniques for somatic anxiety and cognitive techniques for cognitive anxiety.

The presence of others affects performance. Robert Zajonc's social facilitation theory (1965) holds that the mere presence of an audience raises arousal, which increases the likelihood of the dominant (best-learned) response: so an audience improves the performance of simple or well-learned skills by experts and impairs the performance of complex or newly learned skills by beginners. Cottrell's evaluation apprehension theory adds that it is the sense of being judged, not mere presence, that raises arousal. The nature of the crowd matters: its size, its density, how close it is, whether it is supportive or hostile, and how knowledgeable it is.

Home advantage is the consistent finding that teams win more than half of their home games in balanced competitions (Courneya and Carron, 1992, reviewed the evidence). Explanations include crowd support, familiarity with the venue and conditions, the absence of travel fatigue, territorial and psychological factors, and the influence of crowd noise on officials' decisions. Under intense pressure at home, however, a team can suffer a "home disadvantage" in decisive matches when the expectations of the crowd heighten self-consciousness. The implications are to accustom learners gradually to performing in front of others, to practise complex skills until they are well learned before exposing them to crowds, and to rehearse with simulated noise and pressure.