Decision Making

“Decision making is an action or process of choosing a preferred

option or course of action from a set of alternatives. It forms the basis of

all deliberate and voluntary behaviour”.

Quality decision making is a critical skill in sports. The quality of your decisions has a massive impact on your results. Experience plays a significant part in the decision making process such as your skill repertoire as do many

other sub factors such as concentration and level of arousal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLQZBJiJ_cI - Skill Acquisition

We need to understand the information processing system and the impact on decision making.

• Our brains are human processors of information. This processing of information is used to help us analyse how skills are performed , and also to help us learn.

• If you are unable to process information you will be unable to make adjustments to performance based on the information received.

• Being able to identify external factors which could limit success, and then make conscious decisions to overcome these scenarios must be learnt. This will result in faster decision making and motor responses in open play.

How does the information Processing system work?

Input information •from our senses•Cues from external sources

Brain judges/sorts input information

Deems what is important

Disregards noise

Distractions

Makes sense of sensory input through cognitive thought.

This prevents brain overload.

Decision MakingOnce sensory input has been processed a decision to cope with this scenario is made.

Output then occurs

Nervous impulses to the muscles and motor response occurs.

CONTINUOUS CYCLE

Memory

• Short term memory

Errors retained to make corrections when next executed. Aspects of good play briefly retained to replicate.

• Long term Memory

Acquired knowledge of sub routines gained through practice and play retained. You can then draw upon past experiences to create a faster decision and motor response.

Novice

Can only process 1 or 2 points

Slower to process info and anticipate

Too many points cause error and

overload

Do not have past experience and

knowledge to inform decision making

Slower motor responses and

decision making

Automatic

Faster anticipation and cue recognition

Can be selective with information input to

ignore what is irrelevant

An array of past experiences to utilise to in any pressure scenario

Can concentrate on more than one piece of info at

one time

Swift decision making

A tennis player sees an opponent serve the ball and prepares to return it. Reaction time is the brief interval of time it takes for the player to determine how to play the ball before he

or she ever begins to move.

An athlete's ability to react shows how quickly and effectively her or she can make decisions and initiate actions. Key strategies can accelerate the decision making process to give

athletes an edge in competitive situations.Delays in responses can make the difference between winning and losing.

The speed and accuracy with which eachdecision is made is influenced by several

factors, including:• The number of decisions that

need to be made;• the number of responses players

have to choose from;• the time available to make the

decision;• and finally, the costs associatedwith making incorrect decisions.

For effective decisions we make use of

SENSES PAST EXPERIENCE OUR ABILITY TO ‘READ’ WHAT NEXT.

1. Decisions on FOCUS (Attention Selective)

2. Decisions about what the information means

3. Decisions about what to do now

TRIPLE DECISION MAKING PROCESS

“Experience is the thing that allows forthe situation assessment that is at the

heart of intuitive decision making.Experience allows us to recognize a

situation as typical--that is, within ourrange of understanding. Although eachsituation is unique, experience allowsus to recognize similarities or patternsand to understand what those patterns

typically mean. If we have sufficientexperience (and have learned by it) wedo not need to reason our way through

a situation, but instead simply knowhow to act appropriately. In general,

the greater the experience, the greater the decision making capacity”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTzK153l4JE&list=UUZyJfFkdwLTPuSRrG4Te9dA - Decision making – American Football

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbBS8sHrDgA - Decision Making, Space Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8rxqvOVhg - Developing Decision Making in Football

Reduced errors as players respond effectively to cues in the game to make the correct judgements and can ignore possible

distractions.

Swift decisions result in higher success rate, good timing and

fluidity in movements.

Fast decisions allows a varied stroke repertoire to

outmanoeuvre opponents

Good perception and able to play the right shot at the right time

Decisions more spontaneous as a player has strong

belief in their ability

POSITIVE impact of good decision making on performance

ImpactNegative

Recall of past experiences limited impacting decisons and judgments in a "live performance"

Poor attention selection (Focusing

on what is not important)

Inability to read the game and solve

problems

Miss vital cues in the game which

would direct attention impacting

antiicpation.

Frequent, repetitive mistakes

Confusion from brain overload.

Decsion not instinctive, delayed as it take longer to

process info.

POOR DECISION MAKING IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE

Watching the speed of the decision making in this rally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgaU8EubGd4 - Badminton Doubles