Author's previously published articles appended. / Bibliography: leaves 292-341. / xviii, 388 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 2005

Text in Afrikaans / The primary aim of this investigation was to compile guidelines to improve the concentration techniques of primary school sport participants. In order to achieve this goal, a theoretical as well as an empirical investigation were conducted. During the literature study, different aspects of concentration were analyzed and the role of the primary school coach was highlighted in each instance. The literature study indicated that the primary school sport participants’ sport experience would benefit, if the primary sport participants would use concentration techniques during their sport participation. During the empirical study (in which 61 primary school sport participants participated), it was indicated that • Most of the primary school sport participants had very little exposure to concentration techniques. • Self talk, as a concentration technique, was used by most of the participants. The Here-and-Now concentration technique was the least used concentration technique by the participants. The literature study as well as the empirical study indicated that there are guidelines that primary school participants can use in order to better their concentration techniques. / Die primêre doel van hierdie ondersoek was om riglyne saam te stel wat laerskoolsportbeoefenaars kan help om beter te konsentreer gedurende hulle sportdeelname. Ten einde hierdie doel te bereik, isʼn teoretiese sowel as ʼn empiriese ondersoek uitgevoer. Tydens die teoretiese ondersoek is verskillende aspekte van konsentrasie ontleed, waarin die rol van die laerskoolafrigter telkens toegelig is. Die teoretiese ondersoek het aangetoon dat die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars se sportbelewenis daarby sou baat indien die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars konsentrasietegnieke gedurende hulle sportdeelname sou gebruik. Volgens die empiriese ondersoek (waaraan 61 proefpersone deelgeneem het) is aangetoon dat: • Die meerderheid laerskoolsportbeoefenaars baie min bloot gestel word aan konsentrasietegnieke. • Selfspraak, as konsentrasietegniek, was die meeste gebruik, terwyl die Hier-en- Nou konsentrasietegniek die minste gebruik is deur die proefpersone. Die teoretiese sowel as die empiriese ondersoek het aangetoon dat daar wel riglyne is wat gevolg kan word om die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars te help om hulle konsentrasietegnieke te verbeter. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Voorligting)

[Truncated abstract] It has consistently been found that individuals who are more highly vulnerable to anxious mood selectively attend to emotionally negative stimuli as compared to those lower in anxiety vulnerability, suggesting that such anxiety-prone individuals possess an attentional bias favouring negative information. Two of the most consistent tasks used to reveal this bias have been the attentional probe and emotional Stroop tasks. It has been noted, however, that these tasks have not been capable of differentiating the relative role of attentional engagement with, and attentional disengagement from emotionally valenced stimuli, suggesting that either of these attentional processes could account for the attentional bias observed in individuals with high levels of anxiety vulnerability on the attentional probe and emotional Stroop tasks. A number of resent studies have claimed support for the operation of biased attentional disengagement in anxiety using a modified attentional cueing paradigm, concluding that individuals more vulnerable to anxious mood have a selective difficulty disengaging attention from emotionally negative stimuli. The current thesis highlights the possibility, however, that the structure of the modified cueing paradigm could allow individual differences in initial attentional engagement with differentially valenced stimuli to be interpreted as a selective disengagement bias. ... The modified emotional Stroop task employed in the current research measured participant's ability to engage with the emotional content of differentially valenced stimuli having initially processed non-emotional information (stimulus colour), and measured their relative ability to disengage attention from such emotional content to process non-emotional stimulus information. Results using this modified Stroop task suggested that those with high vulnerability to anxious mood were disproportionately fast to engage with the content of negative as compared to non-negative stimuli whereas those with low vulnerability to anxious mood did not display this pattern. The results provided no support for presence of an anxiety-linked bias in attentional disengagement from the content of differentially valenced stimuli. Results derived from the modified emotional Stroop task therefore provided support for the presence of an anxiety-linked bias in attentional engagement with the content of emotionally negative stimuli, but no support for a bias in attentional disengagement from the content of such material. The final study in the present series of experiments was designed to address the novel possibility that a bias in attentional disengagement could result in ongoing semantic activation of negatively valenced stimuli which would not necessarily be indexed by previous tasks assessing biased attentional disengagement. The results of this final study, however, provided no evidence to suggest the presence of anxiety-linked differences in ongoing semantic activation of differentially valenced stimuli. The present series of studies therefore provide support for the presence of an anxiety-linked bias in attentional engagement with the content of emotionally negative stimuli, while providing no support for the presence of an anxiety-linked bias in attentional disengagement from negative stimuli.

Text in Afrikaans / The primary aim of this investigation was to compile guidelines to improve the concentration techniques of primary school sport participants. In order to achieve this goal, a theoretical as well as an empirical investigation were conducted. During the literature study, different aspects of concentration were analyzed and the role of the primary school coach was highlighted in each instance. The literature study indicated that the primary school sport participants’ sport experience would benefit, if the primary sport participants would use concentration techniques during their sport participation. During the empirical study (in which 61 primary school sport participants participated), it was indicated that • Most of the primary school sport participants had very little exposure to concentration techniques. • Self talk, as a concentration technique, was used by most of the participants. The Here-and-Now concentration technique was the least used concentration technique by the participants. The literature study as well as the empirical study indicated that there are guidelines that primary school participants can use in order to better their concentration techniques. / Die primêre doel van hierdie ondersoek was om riglyne saam te stel wat laerskoolsportbeoefenaars kan help om beter te konsentreer gedurende hulle sportdeelname. Ten einde hierdie doel te bereik, isʼn teoretiese sowel as ʼn empiriese ondersoek uitgevoer. Tydens die teoretiese ondersoek is verskillende aspekte van konsentrasie ontleed, waarin die rol van die laerskoolafrigter telkens toegelig is. Die teoretiese ondersoek het aangetoon dat die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars se sportbelewenis daarby sou baat indien die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars konsentrasietegnieke gedurende hulle sportdeelname sou gebruik. Volgens die empiriese ondersoek (waaraan 61 proefpersone deelgeneem het) is aangetoon dat: • Die meerderheid laerskoolsportbeoefenaars baie min bloot gestel word aan konsentrasietegnieke. • Selfspraak, as konsentrasietegniek, was die meeste gebruik, terwyl die Hier-en- Nou konsentrasietegniek die minste gebruik is deur die proefpersone. Die teoretiese sowel as die empiriese ondersoek het aangetoon dat daar wel riglyne is wat gevolg kan word om die laerskoolsportbeoefenaars te help om hulle konsentrasietegnieke te verbeter. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Voorligting)

The aims of the current investigation are to (1) examine the directive mechanism of selective attention on energy as measured by body temperature and to (2) assess the clinical impact of a meditation practice that uses this directive mechanism of selective attention. Despite the recent surge of interest in Eastern contemplative and medicinal practices, there exists a large gap between teachings of such Eastern traditions and empirical research findings of psychology in the West. Specifically, Eastern thought has for millennia emphasized the role of attention or intent in directing energy within the body, and importantly, the role that this phenomenon has on mental and physical health. Conversely, Western psychology has largely conceptualized attention as an unidirectional information-processing mechanism, not as an agent through which energy is directed. The present study contains two experiments that respectively incorporate a basic science approach to identify an alternative function of selective attention and an applied science approach to explore the clinical efficacy of a focused attention dantian (area in the lower abdomen) meditation practice compared to that of a standard Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) practice. Experiment 1 (N = 12) tested through an experimental design whether selective attention can function as a directive mechanism for energy by measuring bilateral hand temperatures. Experiment 2 (N = 16) measured various health and psychological indices before and after a six-week meditation practice in either a dantian-focused method or an MBSR practice. Findings suggest that selective attention does in fact function as a directive mechanism for energy within the body and that the use of this method within the context of a dantian meditation practice improves aspects of mental health more efficaciously than an MBSR practice. This study ultimately seeks to interpret a traditional Eastern understanding of attention and its implications for health through the lens of empirical Western psychology.

[Truncated abstract] Controlled and automatic processing are broad categories, and how best to measure these constructs and their impact on functioning after mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains uncertain. The purpose of this thesis was to examine automatic and controlled processing aspects of attention after mild TBI using the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) and event-related potentials (ERPs). The PASAT is one of the most frequently used tests to evaluate attentional functioning. It has been demonstrated to be a measure sensitive to both acute and longer-term effects of mild TBI, presumably due to demands for rapid processing and executive attentional control. ERPs provide a noninvasive neurophysiological index of sensory processing and cognitive functions and have demonstrated sensitivity to even minor cognitive dysfunction. The parameters provided by this functional technique may be those most likely to distinguish individuals with mild TBI from controls. Initially, it was hypothesized that successful novice PASAT performance requires the engagement of executive attention to establish novel controlled information processing strategies. Ten individuals who had suffered a mild TBI an average of 15.20 months previously were therefore expected to demonstrate processing abnormalities on the PASAT, relative to 10 healthy matched controls. Although the mild TBI group reported significant intensification of subjective symptoms since their injury, compared to controls, the mild TBI group provided a similar amount of correct PASAT responses. ... In the first experiment a visual search task consisting of an automatic detection and a controlled search condition was developed. In the second experiment the search task was performed concurrently with the PASAT task in a dual-task paradigm. In the mild TBI group, prior failure to establish more efficient forms of information processing with practice was found to significantly interfere with simultaneous performance of the PASAT task and the attention demanding condition of the search task. The pattern of impaired performance was considered to reflect a reduction in processing resources rather than a deficit in resource allocation. Dual-task performance in the control group was not associated with a large interference effect. In general, the results of this thesis suggest that individuals with mild TBI are impaired in their ability to progress from the stage of effortful controlled information processing to a stage of more efficient, automatic processing, and thus suffer a subtle attentional deficit. Following mild TBI, performance levels equivalent to controls may only be achieved with an abnormal expenditure of cognitive effort. As a result of the neuropathologic consequences of injury, individuals who have sustained a mild TBI are less able to benefit from practice, experience difficulty coping with simultaneous performance of secondary task, and are susceptible to distressing subjective symptomatology.