Cognitive knowledge structures and soccer performance

This study tested the proposition that experienced soccer players exhibit greater task-specific cognitive knowledge than novice players. 12 experienced and 12 inexperienced subjects viewed structured and unstructured soccer action sequences on a 3.65-m2 video projection screen. In recalling specific player positions following brief 10-sec. film clips, inexperienced players had larger recall of errors than the experienced players on structured trials only. This indicated that experienced players' cognitive knowledge permitted more meaningful associations between players' positions resulting in more efficient retrieval. When recognition of previously viewed film clips was examined, experienced subjects were more accurate in recognising structured trials only. Experienced soccer players seem to have a more complex and discriminating organisation of long-term memory which facilitates the encoding of task-specific information.