An Investigation into the Effects of Stress upon Skilled Performance

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Abstract
An account is presented of an investigation of the effect of an anxiety-producing situation, namely the imminence of a parachute jump, upon skill in an acquisition tracking task. Parachutists at three levels of practice wore oxamined: 19 experienced Regular Army men, 9 Regular Army trainees, and 10 Territorial Army (TA) trainees. It was found that tho TA men were more affected (p <0.05) than the Regular trainees, who were more affected (p<0.001) than the experienced Regulars, who were not affected at all. It is concludod that anxiety does produce a decrement in tasks of this kind, although such decrements can be minimized by appropriate training. It is suggested that an investigation into the best form of such training might bo well worth whilo.

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