Quick FYI email blog post. Sorry…this is not an open access article.😕
Working memory capacity governs conflict resolution in expert decision-making: correlational and causal evidence: International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology: Vol 0, No 0 - Get Access
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1612197X.2026.2662263
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1612197X.2026.2662263
In fast-paced sports, athletes constantly face the conflict between relying on pre-set tactical heuristics and analyzing dynamic situations. Successfully navigating these scenarios depends on the ability to inhibit prepotent heuristic responses. This study proposes that Working Memory Capacity (WMC) is a crucial cognitive resource supporting this inhibition ability. To test this hypothesis, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, 42 participants (n = 21 per group), selected from an initial pool of 80 and divided into high and low WMC groups via extreme-groups analysis, completed conflict and non-conflict decision-making scenarios. The results showed that athletes with high WMC exhibited significantly higher decision accuracy specifically in conflict scenarios compared to the low WMC group, while no significant difference was observed in non-conflict scenarios. In Experiment 2, 34 participants with homogeneous WMC levels repeated the tasks from Experiment 1 while simultaneously performing a cognitive load task to manipulate available WMC resources. The results indicated that cognitive load selectively reduced accuracy in conflict scenarios but increased accuracy in non-conflict scenarios. Collectively, these findings suggest the causal role of WMC in overriding heuristic bias, offering new perspectives for sports performance analysis and talent selection for key tactical positions.
