Temporal dimensions of mental effort in different sports

Conducted 3 experiments with 34 professional athletes using the secondary-task interference procedure to assess the time course of mental effort (i.e., allocation of attentional resources) in different sports. The primary sports were volleyball, 100m-dash, 110m-hurdles and tennis; the secondary task was always to emit, as quickly as possible, a verbal response to an acoustic signal. According to the logic of the secondary-task interference, speed of response to the acoustic signal should be inversely related to the resource demands of the primary task at a given moment. The acoustic signal was presented at different times while Ss were performing to estimate the time course of resource allocation. Results show that allocation of resources varied as a function of (a) the moment in which the acoustic signal was presented; (b) the type of performance; and (c) the degree of performance difficulty.