When the pressure is on and anxiety levels increase it is not easy to perform well. In search of mechanisms explaining the anxiety-performance relationship, we revisit the integrated model of anxiety and perceptual-motor performance (Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans, 2012) and provide a critical review of contemporary literature. While there is increasing evidence that changes in attentional control affect the execution of goal-directed action, based on our model and emerging evidence from different scientific disciplines, we argue for a more integrated, process-based approach. That is, anxiety can affect performance on different levels of operational control (i.e., attentional, interpretational, physical) and - moving beyond the execution of action - have implications for different aspects of perceptual-motor behavior, including situational awareness and decision making.
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Purpose: We investigated the effects of threat and trait anxiety on state anxiety and how that affects police officers’ actions during an arrest. Most experiments on police performance under anxiety test the performance of one particular skill. Yet, police work often involves concerted use of a combination of skills. Methods: We created situations – with two different levels of threat – in which officers had to choose and initiate their actions to control and arrest a non-cooperative suspect. We examined whether threat, trait anxiety and state anxiety influenced decision-making (e.g., choosing the appropriate actions) and performance (e.g., quality of communication and the execution of skills). Results: Trait anxiety affected the level of state anxiety, but not any of the decision-making and performance variables. As for decision-making, results showed that only threat determined which action officers took to gain control over the suspect. As for performance, higher levels of state anxiety were accompanied by lower scores of overall performance, communication, proportionality of applied force and quality of skill execution. Conclusion: It is concluded that state anxiety not only impairs performance of single perceptual-motor tasks, but also relevant accompanying skills such as communicating and applying appropriate force. We argue that police training should focus on an integrated set of decision-making and perceptual-motor skills and not just on the performance of isolated motor skills.
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Comparisons of visual perception, response-selection, and response-execution performance were made between Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and a matched nondiabetic control group. 10 well-controlled male patients with Type 2 diabetes without diabetic complications (M age 58 yr.) and an age and IQ-matched non-diabetic control group consisting of 13 male healthy volunteers (M age 57 yr.) were included. Significant differences were found only between the two groups on response-selection performance, which concerns the selection and preparation of an appropriate motor action.
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