Does thinking interfere with doing?
Yale Symposium on Skills and Practices
April 2014
Barbara Gail Montero
The City University of New York
bmontero@gc.cuny.edu
Sometimes, when it really matters, everything falls apart.
During the 2011 Republican primary presidential debate,
in listing the three governmental departments he was
planning to eliminate, Rick Perry couldn’t call to mind the
phrase “the department of energy”:
The third agency of government I would do away
with…the education, the uh, the commerce and let’s
see, I can’t—the third one. I can’t. Sorry. Oops.
He curtailed his campaign shortly after this.
Though other explanations are possible, it seems that
Perry’s career-ending choke was in part due to his
heightened state of anxiety over how well he was going
to be perceived.
But how does anxiety cause a choke?
Explicit-monitoring theory:
Pressure can cause one to explicitly attend to or
consciously control processes that would normally occur
outside of consciousness. (Baumeister 1984, Masters
1992, Wulf & Prinz 2001, Beilock & Carr, 2001, 2005,
2007, Wallace et al 2006, Beilock & DeCaro, 2007, Ford et
al 2009, Beilock 2011 and Papineau forthcoming.)
On this view, choking can occur in public speaking when
individuals try to bring into working memory information
they should be able to say automatically.
In the psychology literature, explicit-monitoring theory is
the prevalent explanation of choking under pressure in
sports.
Sian Beilock explains,
Highly practiced skills become automatic, so
performance may actually be damaged by
introspection, which is characteristic of an earlier,
consciously-mediated stage. [Athletic skills] are hurt,
not because of worrying, but because of the
attention and control that worry produces (Beilock et
al. 2004).
Her advice: “Distract yourself…don’t give yourself too
much time to think, focus on the outcome, not the
mechanics… [and] just do it.”
Indeed, “just do it,” she says, seems to be “the key to
high-level sports performance.”
But does thinking interfere with doing?
That is, does thinking about (or monitoring, or conscious
control over) your actions cause poor performance at the
expert level?
Thirteen-time PGA winner
Dave Hill claimed, “Golf is
like sex. You can’t be
thinking about the
mechanics of the act while
you are performing.”
But why not?
The “just-do-it principle” (thinking interferes with
expert performance) is purportedly supported by:
I. Varied-focus experiments
II. Verbal-overshadowing experiments
III. Expertise without knowledge
IV. Statistical data
Just-do-it is countered by or in tension with:
V. Distraction theory
VI. Qualitative Studies
VII. Anecdotal Accounts
VIII. Analysis of Steve Blass’s troubles
IX. Heideggerian account of public speaking
X. Philosophical analysis of Dave Hill’s analogy
I. Varied-Focus Experiment
• Novices and experts perform a skill under three
conditions:
• As they usually do.
• While performing a skill-related supplementary task
• While performing a skillunrelated supplementary task.
Beilock and Carr (2002) experiment:
Gabrielle Wulf (2007) summarizes the research in this
area by saying that the “findings clearly show that if
experienced individuals direct their attention to the
details of skill execution, the result is almost certainly a
decrement in performance” (p. 23).
So should expert athletes, as Beilock claims, just do it?
Let me present three reasons to question the justdo-it conclusion of these experiments.
Objection 1: The experiments are “ecologically
invalid.”
• In the wild, athletes do not report on past actions.
• In the wild, athletes are highly
motivated, so skill-unrelated
distractions harm.
• CUNY undergraduate Lorenzo
Ruffo’s point: Adderall usage.
Sutton’s (forthcoming) analogy to driving while
continuously monitoring the rearview mirror illustrates
the odd nature of the task.
Increase the difficulty of the skill-unrelated
supplementary task or decrease the difficulty of the skillrelated supplementary task and the results may not be
the same. (I did this in a chess experiment.)
Sutton thinks that because the varied-focus experiments
fail to capture real-life settings, we need to discount their
results.
But I have a further question:
Both groups perform ecologically invalid tasks, yet ability
is differentially affected. Why is this if not for the reason,
as Beilock (2002) concludes, “well-learned performance
may actually be compromised by attending to skill
execution”?
Objection 2: The skill-related supplementary task may be
more distracting for those who are faster at performing
the skill.
The more-skilled soccer players have to look back further
when the tone is sounded.
Consciously focusing on one’s feet might be compatible
with optimal performance while reflecting back on past
foot action may not be.
Objection 3: The “experts” are not experts.
• It is nearly impossible to get experts into the lab.
• What are experts?
• Studying expertise is the really hard problem
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II. Verbal Overshadowing Experiments
Flegal and Anderson’s (2008) golf experiment
compared:
• Performance after reviewing prior performance.
• Performance after completing a word-puzzle.
Flegal and Anderson 2008
Flegal and Anderson conclude (2008):
Whereas verbalization assists in the early stages of
acquiring a skill, it may impede progress once an
intermediate skill level is attained…This, as they see
it, suggests “a new view of an old adage: Those who
teach, cannot do.”
But is this the correct conclusion to draw?
The participants in the study were told to “record every
detail” they could remember “regardless of how
insignificant it may strike” them.
One idea: Perhaps focusing on the irrelevant aspects of
performance is detrimental.
However, the lesser skilled players were also asked to do
this, yet their performance improved.
Another idea: Flegal and Anderson’s “more highly skilled”
participants were college students of whom only 65% had
ever taken a golf lesson.
Relevance:
• Such players may have found their skill plateau wherein
action is both more proceduralized than a beginner’s and
less conceptualized than an expert’s.
• Many of the more highly skilled participants were never
trained to conceptualize their actions.
The detrimental effect of conceptualization on
perceptual judgments is thought to play a role in
Wilson and Schooler’s (1991) jam-tasting experiment.
• The researchers’ conclusion: “Analyzing reasons can
focus people's attention on nonoptimal criteria.”
• Malcolm Gladwell (2007) puts it more colorfully:
“By making people think about
jam, Wilson and Schooler turned
them into jam idiots.”
Yet the expert jam tasters employed by Consumer
Reports and who served as a standard for accuracy were,
presumably, not negatively affected by verbalizing their
preferences.
It may very well be that expert golf players would not be
hampered by recording what they had focused on during
the putting task.
Schooler's more recent work suggests that with training
people are able to conceptualize their perceptual
judgments without this interfering with their
performance.
Melcher & Schooler’s (1996) wine tasting experiment.
Melcher & Schooler’s (2004) mycology experiment.
III. Those who do, can’t teach
Philosophers have focused on examples of experts who
appear to have no understanding of how they perform
their skills.
Let us examine six examples of diverse “magical” skills as
they are presented by various philosophers.
1. Kant comments that Homer cannot teach his method
of composition because he does not himself know how
he does it (Critique of Judgment sec 47).
2. Robert Brandom (1994) and John McDowell (2010)
cite the chicken sexer who can’t teach anyone how he
makes his judgments because he does not know
himself.
3. Stephen Schiffer (2002, p. 201) supports one of his
arguments against Jason Stanley’s view that know-how
is inextricably connected to propositional knowledge by
citing eight-year-old Mozart’s apparent ability to
compose a symphony without being able to explain
how to do so.
4. David Velleman (2008), in arguing that we achieve
excellence only after we have moved beyond reflective
agency, cites the Zhuangzi in which the skill of
wheelwrighting is described as proceeding without any
understanding of how it is done:
You can’t put it into words, and yet there’s a knack to
it somehow. I can’t teach it to my son, and he can’t
learn it from me.
5. In Plato’s dialog Ion, Socrates says that the poet and
the rhapsode’s actions are a form of madness since they
have no knowledge whereof they speak.
6. In pointing out how scientific hypotheses may be hit
upon suddenly and unsystematically, Carl Hempel (1966)
recounts the chemist Kekulé’s story that in 1862 the idea
for the ring structure for benzene came to him in a flash
after dreaming of a snake biting its tail.
What do I make of such views?
Kekulé himself in his breakthrough paper claims that his
theory was formed in 1858, four years prior to the dream.
The proverbial chicken sexer who has no understanding of
how he is making his judgments simply doesn’t exist.
Nakayama et al (1993) makes this abundantly clear in an
article explaining in painstaking detail just one of the
intricate methods that chicken sexers learn.
Aristotle had a theory of chicken sexing (On the
Generation of Animals).
Former poultry sexer Tom Savage:
Poultry sexing is based upon the acquired ability
to recognize/differentiate anatomic structures
within the chick's cloaca.
There is little evidence that Mozart had no understanding
of what he was doing or that he composed without
thinking about it.
Eight year old children are often capable of detailed
explanations of their skills.
Moreover, the extent of his compositional genius at that
age is also somewhat contested: Handwriting analyses
indicates that his father played a significant role in his
compositions until Mozart was thirteen and not merely as
an amanuensis (Keys 1980).
And as an adult Mozart didn’t compose without thinking.
In a well-known letter, he claims to see in his mind entire
compositions finished “at a glance” and “all at once” and
that all the inventing “takes place in a pleasing lively
dream.”
This letter is now dismissed as a forgery and his actual
letters make no comments about sudden insights
(Spaethling 2000).
His sister has documented that he would spend endless
hours mentally composing his music (Stafford 1993).
Furthermore, Tyson’s (1987) studies of the autograph
scores reveal that some manuscripts contain numerous
revisions.
We lack similar archival data about Homer’s method’s of
composition and the ancient wheelwright’s approach.
And Homer famously does say in the opening lines of the
Odyssey:
“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story.”
Whether the authors of the Zhuangzi are basing their
claims on what actual wheelwrights said is unknown.
Socrates, however, certainly doesn’t listen to Ion:
After arguing that Ion’s abilities cannot be rational, Ion
responds: “[although your reasoning appears
unassailable] I doubt whether you will ever have
eloquence enough to persuade me that I praise Homer
only when I am mad and possessed” (Ion, 536, d).
This line is sometimes cut when the dialog is anthologized
(Bychkov and Sheppard 2010), but it’s important!
Socrates not only doesn’t take Ion’s claims seriously, he
apparently had never even observed Ion in action.
IV. Statistical Analysis of Choking
Is there a statistically significant decrease in skill in
situations in which athletes are thought to be relatively
more skill-focused?
• Archival data from baseball World Series between 1924
and 1982 illustrate home teams choke in decisive games
(Baumeister et al. 1984).
• An expanded data base that include games through
1993, eliminates the statistical significance of the hometeam choke (Schlenker 1995,Tauer et al. 2009).
•Also: In football, “icing the kicker” is ineffective
(espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/34217/
icing-the-kicker-remains-ineffective-practice).
V. Distraction Theory of Choking
The self-focus account of choking says that choking occurs
because pressure induces experts to focus on their skills.
Distraction theory says basically the opposite: high
pressure draws attention away from the task at hand and
to irrelevant aspects of performance (Wine 1971).
Distraction theory is supported by the idea that anxiety
impairs working memory and executive control (Ashcraft
& Kirk, 2001; Eysenck et al., 2005; Hayes et al., 2008),
both of which are important components of, among other
things, planning and strategizing, or, in other words,
thinking while doing.
Also, high anxiety induces various physiological changes
that appear to hinder performance.
The fight-or-flight response which anxiety produces
shunts blood flow to the larger muscles, leaving cold feet
and hands, and thus motor skills relying on the hands or
feet may be harmed.
It can cause loss of peripheral vision, increased
perspiration, and tremors.
These points may be obvious, but they are often not
mentioned in the literature on choking.
The choke is thought to be something different in kind.
But is it?
VI. Qualitative Studies of Thinking
while Doing
Qualitative studies oppose the just-do-it principle.
Adam Nicholls and colleagues (2006) asked elite athletes
to keep a diary of stressors that occurred and coping
strategies they employed during games, as well as to rate
how effective these coping strategies were.
The most common method of dealing with stress
involved redoubling both effort and attention and such
methods were perceived as more effective than other
methods.
Collins and colleagues (2001), measured kinematic
aspects of elite weightlifters’ performance during training
and competition and questioned these athletes about
their conscious use of any movement-change strategy in
response to competitive pressure.
Although the participants modified their movements as a
result of competitive pressure, and claimed to do so
consciously, such modifications did not diminish their
overall performance.
In a study by Hill et al. (2010), interviews with elite
athletes revealed that distractions (rather than self-focus)
were seen as the main cause of choking (p.227).
Qualitative studies have limitations, but, as we saw, so do
the more controlled studies by Beilock and others.
Toner and Moran (2011) conclude from their research,
reasonably enough, that it is the type of thought that
matters:
Experiment 1: Monitor your golf put and report where on
the putter face you struck the ball.
Experiment 2: Think out-loud while holing balls.
Toner and Moran conclude:
Golfers may need to choose their swing thoughts
very carefully because focusing on certain elements
of movement, such as the impact spot, could lead to
an impairment in performance proficiency” (680).
I wonder if they even need to be careful about this?
VII. Individual Cases illustrating
thinking in action
Tennis player and coach Timothy
Gallwey:
“When I hit my backhands, I am aware
that my shoulder muscle rather than my
forearm is pulling my arm
through….Similarly, on my forehand I am
particularly aware of my triceps when my
racket is below the ball.”
Cellist Inbal Segev:
My teacher, who was a student
of Casals would say “don’t let
the music lead you; you need
to direct it.”
Getting lost in the music is a
mistake, she said, as it precludes
thought.
Anecdotes in philosophy?
________________________________________________
 Theory
 Intuition
 General claims
X Anecdotes
_________________________________________________
They illustrate a view
They add interest
They reveal what inspires theory
VIII. Steve Blass Disease,
Steve Sax Syndrome
Dreyfus (2007) supports the idea that attention to and
conscious control over one’s highly-skilled actions degrades
performance in part by citing the fate of former Yankees
second baseman, Chuck Knoblauch, who “couldn't resist
stepping back and being mindful” (354).
The view is found in the popular press as well: “ [Just like
Novotna] faltered at Wimbledon…because she began thinking
about her shots again, …[Knoblauch] under the stress of
playing in front of forty thousand fans at Yankee Stadium,
[found] himself reverting to explicit mode” Gladwell’s (2000).
John McDowell (2007):
[Knoblauch lost his ability because] he started
thinking about ‘the mechanics,’ about how throwing
efficiently to first base is done…This kind of loss of
skill comes about when the agent’s means-end
rationality tries, so to speak, to take over control of
the details of her bodily movements, and it cannot do
as good a job at that as the skill itself used to do.
But what reason is there to think that Knoblauch, or any
of the other major league players who have been struck
with similar performance failures suffered because they
were thinking about what they were doing?
The former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass (2012)
mentions numerous theories about what might have
been causing his “control problem”:
• Faulty mechanics
• Personal problems
• Too tight underwear
Never once does he mention that it might have been due
to thinking too much about what he was doing.
What he was aware of:
Before my control problem I had the ability to just
concentrate on the immediate task at hand, which is
a wonderful thing for an athlete. I could block out
family, world hunger, or anything that was going
on, because of that focus. That focus all went away
and everything was occurring in my mind. I was like
an antenna.
It sounds as if the problem is not thinking too much
about his actions, but not being able to think enough
about them.
IX. Do similar considerations apply
to public speaking?
According to Dreyfus (2013), “in total absorption,
sometimes called flow, one is so fully absorbed in one’s
activity that one is not even marginally thinking about
what one is doing.” He cites Merleau-Ponty:
The orator does not think before speaking, nor even
while speaking; his speech is his thought. The end of
the speech or text will be the lifting of a spell. It is at
this stage that thoughts on the speech or text will be
able to arise.
Heidegger tells us that when a lecturer enters a familiar
classroom, the lecturer experiences neither the doorknob
nor the seats; such features of the room for the lecturer
are “completely unobtrusive and unthought.”
All of such things would indeed seem to be beneficially
unthought so as to leave plenty of mental space to think
about the lecture.
Perhaps we should all be like the high diver on the board
prior to her plunge: before speaking, review what we
have to say so as to make sure that it is there in our
conscious mind; once there, thinking about it will not
interfere.
I have noticed that excellent speakers do this. And,
during his presidential debate, perhaps Rick Perry would
have benefited from this as well.
X. The question you’ve been waiting for…
Earlier I quoted golfer Dave Hill: “Golf is like sex. You can’t
be thinking about the mechanics of the act while you are
performing.”
Is golf like sex?
Aristotle had something to say about this.
Nicomachean Ethics, book 7, chapter 11:
οἷον τῇ τῶν ἀφροδισίων· οὐδένα γὰρ ἂν δύνασθαι
νοῆσαί τι ἐν αὐτῇ.
(1152b17–18)
As with the pleasure of sex: no one could have any
thoughts when enjoying that. (trans. C. Rowe.)
What is my view?
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