Explaining the phenomenon of 'weak mentality' when under pressure

Illustration photo

“We see this phenomenon everywhere, in sports and outside of sports,” said Steven Chase, a neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Chase and colleagues studied what happens in the brain that causes performance to plummet, and published their results in the journal Neuron on September 12.

The phenomenon of collapsing under pressure is not unique to humans. Just as a tennis player may miss a crucial shot, monkeys may also underperform in high-reward situations.

The psychological "jackpot" situation

The team set up a computer test in which rhesus macaques received a reward after quickly and accurately moving a cursor to a target. Each trial was accompanied by an indication of whether the reward would be small, medium, large, or a “jackpot.”

Jackpot rewards are rare and of exceptional value, creating a "bet more, win more" situation.

Using a small chip implanted in the monkey's brain and covered in electrodes, the team monitored how neural activity changed when different rewards were received. The chip was placed in the motor cortex, a region of the frontal lobe that controls movement.

The researchers found that in the “jackpot” situations, activity in neurons involved in motor preparation decreased. Motor preparation is the brain’s way of calculating how to complete a movement – ​​similar to aiming an arrow at a target before firing. The decrease in motor preparation meant the monkeys’ brains weren’t ready, and so they performed less efficiently.

This finding “helps us understand that reward-driven behavior is not linear,” said Bita Moghaddam, a behavioral neuroscientist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

To some extent, “you don’t necessarily perform better as the rewards increase,” Moghaddam says. She says it would be interesting to see how other brain regions respond in jackpot situations, since it’s possible multiple brain regions are involved.

Maintain athletic performance

The researchers then looked at why motor preparation declines in high-stakes situations.

An analysis of the relationship between reward motivation and neural preparation with monkey motor performance showed that as reward increased, neural activity reached a peak in preparation.

For larger rewards, preparation begins to “go downhill,” pushing the brain out of its optimal zone for performance. Researchers call this the “neural bias” hypothesis.

Chase said the team was also interested in whether the stress-induced “psychological collapse” could be avoided, or whether the brain findings could help optimize motor performance.

However, he asserted that the research team first needs to study this phenomenon more in humans.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ly-giai-hien-tuong-tam-ly-yeu-khi-gap-ap-luc-20240913054946364.htm