امین امینی

Shooters typically make great efforts to strengthen their physical and motor abilities, but are often less aware of the cognitive and psychological factors that affect their performance and skill performance. Therefore, it seems that shooters, especially novice shooters, are not very familiar with the mental skills related to shooting and pay less attention to mental training. However, cognitive training has recently been recognized as one of the basic skills required in perceptual-motor activities. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of training cognitive imaging strategies versus training of motor representation strategies on the acquisition and retention of shooting skills. This randomized controlled clinical trial study was performed on 45 undergraduate military science students with an age limit of 18 to 25 years, studying in the second semester of 1997-98. Subjects were randomly selected from a university of military sciences in Tehran and randomly divided into three groups of mental imagery, motor representation and control using a table of random numbers. The intervention groups received a three-week mental imagery training program, motor representation along with shooting training (five sessions per week). The control group only participated in shooting training. In order to evaluate the performance of shooters in the pre-test, post-test and memorization stages, a SCAT machine was used. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS20 software and p value less than 0.05 was considered significant. The results of combined analysis of variance showed that both cognitive imaging and motor representation interventions had a significant effect on improving the record of novice military shooters (P≤0.05). The results showed that although there was no significant difference between motor representation and cognitive imaging groups in the post-test stage, however, a significant difference was observed between the motor representation and cognitive imaging groups (P = 0.006) in the retention stage. The results show that cognitive imagery and motor representation interventions can improve the performance of novice military shooters, although motor representation is more likely to be effective than cognitive imagery

The athlete's skills and psychological state often influence success in sports performance. The current study aims to explain the performance in paintball competitions based on cognitive resilience and cognitive regulation of emotion. The study participants included all paintball players participating in national paintball competitions (the year 2022), including 17 teams of 7 players, a total of 116 people. In order to investigate the psychological components affecting the athletes' performance, Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) were used. After completing these questionnaires, IBM SPSS Statistics version 26 was used to analyze the data. Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise regression were used to analyze the data. The results showed a significant relationship between resilience scores, the overall score of cognitive emotion regulation, and the scores of 9 emotion regulation strategies with the players' performance in the paintball competition (P≤0.05). Players who achieved better results in tournaments, scored higher on the resilience factor. Also, players who achieved better results in matches had higher scores on emotion regulation strategies like self-blame, positive refocusing, refocus on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective, and lower scores on the acceptance, rumination, catastrophizing and other-blame strategies. This study showed that cognitive resilience and emotion regulation could be used as predictors of success and winning positions in paintball competitions.

The aim of this study was to evaluate Sustained Attention Performance and Reaction Time in Shooters of National Rifle, Pistol and Trap Teams and compare these groups with each other. In this causal-comparative study, 33 players of men national teams, including 11 from rifle team, 11 from pistol team and 11 from trap team were selected by available sampling method and evaluated using continuous computer performance test. Covariance method was used to compare the variables of continuous performance test including (number of errors and reaction time) between the three groups. The results showed no significant difference in the performance of sustained attention and Reaction Time between the three groups ( P > 0.05), despite the superiority of the trap group in both components. Based on the findings of the present study, the performance of sustained attention and reaction time in the shooters of the national teams of rifle, pistol and trap is equally important. These findings can be justified by the similar nature of different shooting disciplines in the use of sustained attention and reaction time.