Perception and Peak Performance
The New York Times:
Like many of us during March Madness, Jessica Witt is a college basketball fan. She is also a professor of psychology at Purdue University. Those interests converged recently at a Purdue basketball game, as she watched fans noisily try to distract the opposing players during free throws. The fans hooted, stomped and waved streamers — but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the outcome.
Dr. Witt wondered whether other interventions might. As director of the Action-Modulated Perception Lab at Purdue, she’d previously demonstrated that for successful tennis players and field-goal kickers, the ball or goal looks larger than it does to players not enjoying a hot streak. Success, for these athletes, had changed how they perceived the field of action.
Read the whole story: The New York Times
Comments
One way to increase accuracy when putting is to aim for a large circle surrounding the hole. For example, from 20 feet away you might putt for a circle 6 feet in diameter.
From 10 feet way, it might be 2 feet.
This point of this is to make sure you don’t waste a putt by leaving the ball far from the cup. But the effect is also to increase the percentage of putts holed.
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