Please note the following upcoming event as part of the Macquarie University Philosophy Work in Progress Seminar Series (*** Please note change of speaker).
The Harbinger of Dread: Suggestions for a Phenomenological Account of the "Choking Effect" Massimiliano Cappuccio (UAE University) 1-2pm, Tuesday, 11th August Building W6A, Rm107 “Choking” is known in sport as the tendency of expert athletes to experience a dramatic drop in performance during pressure-filled circumstances that stress the importance of producing excellent performances. Of the various psychological models that try to explain why and when this paradox occurs, the most influential are two: distraction and self-monitoring theories, which impute choking to the exhaustion of attentional resources and the disruption of fluid motor routines, respectively. These models correspond to different theories of skill that emphasise in opposite ways the relevance of control and automation for the production of expert performances. In particular, the self-monitoring theory of choking in sport psychology is often associated to Hubert Dreyfus’ influential philosophy of skill acquisition and absorbed coping, which de-emphasize the role of explicit control while maintaining that effective skill use is necessarily automatized, non-conscious, pre-representational, and unreflective. As the Dreyfusian account of skill doesn’t acknowledge any role to decision and conscious awareness in expert performances, it has attracted criticisms by various philosophical and psychological perspectives that find this idea counterintuitive or just factually wrong. While I agree that this general model of skill needs to be modified in order to accommodate various bodies of empirical evidence and the results of various conceptual analyses, I will argue that our theories of skill and expertise can’t forsake the fundamental principles of the embodied phenomenology that inspired it. Even if the competing models convincingly demonstrate a significant role played by explicit attention and control in expert performances, I will try to explore how the phenomenology of motor intentionality (Merleau-Ponty) and Angst (Heidegger) can still inspire a consistent anti-representationist non-instructionist account of choking in sport. Feel free to bring your lunch. Contact: Rachael Brown (rachael.br...@mq.edu.au), Adam Hochman ( adam.hoch...@mq.edu.au), Mike Olson (michael.ol...@mq.edu.au) A google calendar with details of other events in this series is available for viewing and subscription by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/k85h2dl UPCOMING SPEAKERS 18 Aug Neil Levy (MQ) 25 Aug Toshiro Osawa (MQ) 1 Sep Albert Atkin (MQ) 8 Sep* Jennifer Mensch (UWS)
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