Now I will look at how concentration of attention can affect sports performance. Caution signals are information you collect while racing. There are two types of attentional signals, relevant signals and irrelevant signals. Important cautionary signs include making sure teammates are in position and making sure the position of the ball is correct when you are about to shoot. Irrelevant warning signs include crowd noises and things like bottle throwing. Selective attention is what all sports psychologists work on as it tries to ignore all irrelevant cues and focus on relevant cues that can impact performance. This would benefit performance as they are able to focus on the right and important things rather than irrelevant cues that are not important. For example, a boxer must ignore irrelevant cues such as crowds and noise and focus on relevant cues such as his opponent and the punches being thrown at him. If they fail to do this, their performance will decline as they focus on the wrong things. Divided attention occurs when you are required to focus on more than one relevant cue. This occurs in rugby because they have to be aware of where the ball is, make sure they are behind the pass so they can receive the pass and make sure they are in the right position. Sports performance requires both selective and divided attention to improve performance since athletes do not want to focus on irrelevant stimuli but need to focus on all relevant stimuli. Overall, you need to consider cautionary signs when observing an artist's performance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The focus of attention can be viewed in two dimensions. This is the width size and direct size. The width dimension is then divided into broad attentional focus and narrow attentional focus. A broad focus of attention means you absorb and process a lot of information. For example, when batting in cricket, you need to watch the ball, observe the gaps in the field to know where to try to play the shot to score enough runs. Narrow attentional focus occurs when you have a small amount of information to absorb. A sporting example of this is in a 100 meter sprint where you just focus on yourself, how to stay on the right line and make sure you get a good start. Competitive pressure can impact a large concentration of attention as the batsman may feel the pressure to score runs and will not find the gaps due to the pressure. It may also have little impact on attentional focus as the 100m sprinter will think too much about their performance. Athletes in team sports such as football and rugby will need to have a wide attention span to be able to see all the players on the pitch so they can read the game. Athletes in individual sports such as sprinters and golfers will need to have a narrow focus of attention so they can concentrate on their own performance and no one else. In the direct dimension, this is also divided into two, external attentional focus and internal attentional focus. External attentional focusing means that you take into account relevant external cues such as crowd noises and things like bottle throwing. A sporting example of this would be in tennis, the audience must be silent while playing, but if they were not, the player.