Prof. VaezMousavi, PhD (Manager of Psychology Center, Iranian National Olympic Committee) AROUSAL AND ACTIVATION IN A PISTOL SHOOTING TASK

AROUSAL AND ACTIVATION IN A PISTOL SHOOTING TASK

VAEZMOUSAVI, S. M. PH.D

Sport Science Department. Imam Hossein University, Tehran, I.R. IRAN.

Introduction: The effect of arousal / activation on shooting performance is too apparent to ignore. Arousal at a particular time has been defined as the energetic state at that time, reflected in electro-dermal activity and measured by skin conductance level; and “task related activation” as the change in arousal from a resting baseline to the task situation.  The present study, aimed to investigate whether this terminology which was previously substantiated in laboratory tasks, was applicable in terms of behavioral performance in a military pistol shooting task. 
Methods: A standard Browning pistol was used with elite shooters. Twenty one military elite shooters (mean age= 34 years) voluntarily took part in the study.  Skin Conductance Level was recorded as an index of arousal. Activation was calculated by subtracting the level of baseline activity from arousal level. Several performance measures including scores, inter-shot intervals, and the total shooting time, as dependent variables were also electronically recorded.
Results: It was found that all performance measures decreased with increasing activation, but not with arousal.
Discussion: These findings support previous suggestions concerning the value of conceptualizing arousal and activation as separable aspects of the energetics of physiological and behavioral functions. The results are discussed in relation to the significance of current hypotheses explaining arousal-performance relationship. Implication for shooting performance are advanced.
                                                             
Keywords: arousal, activation, electro-dermal activity, pistol shooting task, skin conductance level.