We examined the effects of anxiety and situation-
specific contextual information on attentional, interpretational,
and behavioural processes underpinning perceptual–
motor performance as proposed by Nieuwenhuys
and Oudejans (2012) using an in situ task. Twelve skilled cricket batsmen
played against a skilled spin bowler under conditions
manipulated to induce low and high levels of anxiety and
the presence of low and high levels of situation-specific
context. High anxiety decreased the number of good bat–
ball contacts, while high levels of situation-specific context
increased the number of times the ball was missed.
When under high anxiety, participants employed significantly
more fixations of shorter duration to more locations,
but the effects of anxiety were restricted to the attentional
level only. Situation-specific context affected performance
and behavioural measures but not anxiety, cognitive load
or perceptual–cognitive processes, suggesting that performance
is influenced through different mechanisms from
anxiety that are independent of working memory load.