The wrinkle in this system is that the cerebellum, unlike the cerebral cortex, is not consciously accessible. As a result, Guenther says, it is when chokers try to check their progress as they are performing that they run into trouble. “Let’s say you’re trying to play the piano. If you were relying on your motor memory”—just letting it fly—“your motor command would automatically read out the next note in about 50 milliseconds.” But consciously monitoring your performance brings this superfast sequence of motor commands to a screeching halt, resulting in a choking incident of epic proportions. “The feedback from the first note takes 100 milliseconds just to move from your cochlea up to your brain. So if you’re saying to yourself, ‘Okay, I just finished the C, now I have to go on to the D,’ you’re going to have problems.”

But how much monitoring is too much? Obsessing over every little detail can be perilous, but daydreaming might leave you without sufficient focus to complete a task at all. To find the happy monitoring medium, psychologists Daniel Gucciardi and James Dimmock of the University of Western Australia recruited 20 expert golfers and instructed them to perform putts in three circumstances. Players in the first group focused on three words that stood for aspects of their physical technique (such as “head,” “weight” and “arms”); the second group focused on three words that had nothing to do with the putt (for example, “red,” “blue” and “green”); and the third group focused on a single word that encapsulated the putting motion (such as “smooth”). Initially, the golfers putted in a low-pressure situation, and most of them did well. During a second trial, however, Gucciardi and Dimmock ratcheted up the tension by offering the top performers cash prizes.

If your institution has site license access, enter here.