Abstract

Cognitive attentional process in tennis players of varying levels were investigated. A tennis-specific version (T-TAIS) of NIDEFFERs Test of Attentional und Interpersonal Style (TAIS) was constructed corresponding TAIS item into tennis game and practice. Tennis and soft tennis players (N = 760) judged to be either beginning, intermediate or advanced served as subjects. Analysis of variances showed significant main effects of skill on T-TAIS subscales, but not on TAIS subscales. And high correlation coefficient was not found between corresponding subscales of TAIS and T-TAIS. This means that T-TAIS is more accurate indicator of attentional style than the TAIS. Five attentional factors were extracted by factor analysis of T-TAIS. The two factors were positive resources. Those were interpreted as broad attentional focus and narrow attentional focus. Other three factors were negative resources. Those were interpreted as inability of selective attention, inability to narrowing attention and overloaded by external stimuli. The scores of the broad attentional focus and narrow attentional focus vary as a function of skill level, but scores of the narrowing attention and overloaded by external stimuli were not. Factor analysis data supported NIDEFFERs narrow to broad attentional dimension, but did not support internal to external dimension. Verf.-Referat