Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study

Lucy Albertella; Rebecca Kirkham; Amy B Adler; John Crampton; Sean P A Drummond; Gerard J Fogarty; James J Gross; Leonard Zaichkowsky; Judith P Andersen; Paul T Bartone; Danny Boga; Jeffrey W Bond; Tad T Brunyé; Mark J Campbell; Liliana G Ciobanu; Scott R Clark; Monique F Crane; Arne Dietrich; Tracy J Doty; James E Driskell; Ivar Fahsing; Stephen M Fiore; Rhona Flin; Joachim Funke; Justine M Gatt; P A Hancock; Craig Harper; Andrew Heathcote; Kristin J Heaton; Werner F Helsen; Erika K Hussey; Robin C Jackson; Sangeet Khemlani; William D S Killgore; Sabina Kleitman; Andrew M Lane; Shayne Loft; Clare MacMahon; Samuele M Marcora; Frank P McKenna; Carla Meijen; Vanessa Moulton; Gene M Moyle; Eugene Nalivaiko; Donna O'Connor; Dorothea O'Conor; Debra Patton; Mark D Piccolo; Coleman Ruiz; Linda Schücker; Ron A Smith; Sarah J R Smith; Chava Sobrino; Melba Stetz; Damien Stewart; Paul Taylor; Andrew J Tucker; Haike van Stralen; Joan N Vickers; Troy A W Visser; Rohan Walker; Mark W Wiggins; Andrew Mark Williams; Leonard Wong; Eugene Aidman; Murat Yücel

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1017675

Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study

Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 18:13:1017675. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1017675. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lucy Albertella¹, Rebecca Kirkham¹, Amy B Adler², John Crampton³, Sean P A Drummond¹, Gerard J Fogarty⁴, James J Gross⁵, Leonard Zaichkowsky⁶, Judith P Andersen⁷, Paul T Bartone⁸, Danny Boga⁹, Jeffrey W Bond³, Tad T Brunyé¹⁰, Mark J Campbell¹¹, Liliana G Ciobanu¹², Scott R Clark¹², Monique F Crane¹³, Arne Dietrich¹⁴, Tracy J Doty², James E Driskell¹⁵, Ivar Fahsing¹⁶, Stephen M Fiore¹⁷, Rhona Flin¹⁸, Joachim Funke¹⁹, Justine M Gatt^{20

21}, P A Hancock¹⁷, Craig Harper¹, Andrew Heathcote^{22

23}, Kristin J Heaton²⁴, Werner F Helsen²⁵, Erika K Hussey²⁶, Robin C Jackson²⁷, Sangeet Khemlani²⁸, William D S Killgore²⁹, Sabina Kleitman³⁰, Andrew M Lane³¹, Shayne Loft³², Clare MacMahon³³, Samuele M Marcora³⁴, Frank P McKenna³⁵, Carla Meijen³⁶, Vanessa Moulton³⁷, Gene M Moyle³⁸, Eugene Nalivaiko^{22

23}, Donna O'Connor³⁹, Dorothea O'Conor⁴⁰, Debra Patton⁴¹, Mark D Piccolo⁴², Coleman Ruiz⁴³, Linda Schücker⁴⁴, Ron A Smith⁴⁵, Sarah J R Smith⁴⁶, Chava Sobrino⁴⁷, Melba Stetz⁴⁸, Damien Stewart⁴⁹, Paul Taylor^{22

23}, Andrew J Tucker¹, Haike van Stralen⁵⁰, Joan N Vickers⁵¹, Troy A W Visser³², Rohan Walker^{22

23}, Mark W Wiggins¹³, Andrew Mark Williams⁵², Leonard Wong⁵³, Eugene Aidman^{22

54}, Murat Yücel¹

Affiliations

¹ Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
² Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, United States.
³ APS College of Sport and Exercise Psychologists, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
⁴ School of Psychology and Wellbeing, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia.
⁵ Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States.
⁶ Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.
⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁸ National Defense University, Washington, DC, United States.
⁹ Australian Army Psychology Corps, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
¹⁰ U.S. Army DEVCOM Analysis Center, Natick, MA, United States.
¹¹ Physical Education & Sport Sciences Department, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
¹² Adelaide Medical School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
¹³ School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹⁴ Department of Psychology, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
¹⁵ Florida Maxima Corporation, Orlando, FL, United States.
¹⁶ Norwegian Police University College, Oslo, Norway.
¹⁷ Department of Psychology, and Institute of Simulation and Training, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, United States.
¹⁸ Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, United Kingdom.
¹⁹ Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
²⁰ School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia.
²¹ Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
²² The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
²³ School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
²⁴ US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), Natick, MA, United States.
²⁵ Department of Movement Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
²⁶ Defense Innovation Unit, Mountain View, CA, United States.
²⁷ School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom.
²⁸ United States Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States.
²⁹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States.
³⁰ School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Darlington, NSW, Australia.
³¹ Sport, Physical Activity Research Centre (SPARC), School of Sport, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
³² School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
³³ School of Allied Health, Human Services, and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
³⁴ Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
³⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom.
³⁶ Faculty of Sport, Allied Health and Performance Science, St Mary's University, Twickenham, United Kingdom.
³⁷ Mindflex Group Ltd, London, United Kingdom.
³⁸ Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
³⁹ Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Darlington, NSW, Australia.
⁴⁰ Department of Defense, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
⁴¹ United States Department of Defense, Washington DC, United States.
⁴² Fire Rescue Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
⁴³ Mission Critical Team Institute, Annapolis, MD, United States.
⁴⁴ Department of Sport Psychology, Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
⁴⁵ Consultant, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁴⁶ Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, Salisbury, United Kingdom.
⁴⁷ NSW Institute of Sport and Diving, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁴⁸ Independent Practitioner, Grand Ledge, MI, United States.
⁴⁹ Room23 Psychology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
⁵⁰ Altrecht Institute for Mental Health Care, Altrecht, Netherlands.
⁵¹ Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
⁵² Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Florida, IL, United States.
⁵³ United States Army War College, Carlisle, PA, United States.
⁵⁴ Decision Sciences Division, Defense Science and Technology Group, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Abstract

Introduction: The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure.

Methods: International experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense; (ii) Competitive Sport; (iii) Civilian High-stakes; and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance.

Results: Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention; (2) Cognitive Control-Performance Monitoring; (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems-Arousal; (4) Cognitive Control-Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance; (5) Cognitive Control-Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression; (6) Working memory-Flexible Updating; (7) Working memory-Active Maintenance; (8) Perception and Understanding of Self-Self-knowledge; (9) Working memory-Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested-Shifting.

Discussion: Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization.

Keywords: assessment; cognition; expert consensus; high performance; transdisciplinary.

Copyright © 2023 Albertella, Kirkham, Adler, Crampton, Drummond, Fogarty, Gross, Zaichkowsky, Andersen, Bartone, Boga, Bond, Brunyé, Campbell, Ciobanu, Clark, Crane, Dietrich, Doty, Driskell, Fahsing, Fiore, Flin, Funke, Gatt, Hancock, Harper, Heathcote, Heaton, Helsen, Hussey, Jackson, Khemlani, Killgore, Kleitman, Lane, Loft, MacMahon, Marcora, McKenna, Meijen, Moulton, Moyle, Nalivaiko, O’Connor, O’Conor, Patton, Piccolo, Ruiz, Schücker, Smith, Smith, Sobrino, Stetz, Stewart, Taylor, Tucker, van Stralen, Vickers, Visser, Walker, Wiggins, Williams, Wong, Aidman and Yücel.