An Interesting Thought on the Bears OLine Struggles..........

Although this came from an article about the replacement refs and their performance actually eroding each week rather than improving it dawned on me that it could apply just as well to the Bears offensive line and to J'Marcus Webb in particular.

I've wondered aloud before how that kid could forget a snap count so often during the few seconds and 20-30 feet it takes to get from the huddle to his position on the line. He's improved some this year but how many times last year was he flagged for illegal procedure because he moved before the snap?

What this college professor offers in the way of an explanation makes perfect sense. Some peoples performance tends to decline in certain "high stress" situations more than others performing the same task. It depends upon the source of the stress and how well they believe they can cope with it.

If there's already a prior expectation of poor performance at that task it does add another layer of stress to that individual as they go about it. This may be one reason why certain football players may do fairly well in lower stress practices where their job isn't in jeopardy yet still play poorly in games when their job is in jeopardy.

The solution Stroessner offers may also explain why it takes certain players at certain positions longer to adapt to the level of play in the NFL compared to what they were accustomed to in college. After hundreds of successful repetitions of the same plays in practice and with added game experience and increasing success the stress decreases and a players memory capacity and cognitive skills improves as does his play.

One of the biggest surprises of the replacement ref saga was how the new guys seemed to get worse and worse with each game. While the regulars might have some preseason rust, the replacements corroded by the week. There may be a psychological reason for that. It's called "stereotype threat," which is defined by Barnard College professor Steven Stroessner as "when performance is harmed by an awareness of an expectation of poor performance." Stroessner explains that when a group is widely expected to fare poorly at a task, the pressure of that negative perception takes up crucial brain space needed for a job well done. And then the members of that group – in this case the replacement refs – screw up.


"We know when there's an expectation of poor performance, and that can have a few predictable consequences," Stroessner says. "It does reduce working memory capacity. There are fewer cognitive resources. When you're in a high-stakes situation, dealing with a lot of information, you've also got additional worries about the situation: 'I hope I don't blow this. Everyone's expecting me to get this wrong.' "


The antidote to this? Stroessner has a simple answer: "Lots of practice."

This tends to explain a lot about what we observed with the replacement refs and it also makes sense as it relates to a player like Webb who seems to have tremendous physical tools but often plays like he's a mental midget. It also provides some logic as to why the continue to stick with the guy hoping that with enough reps he'll finally begin to "get it".

The theory makes some sense to me. I can remember a lot of situations that I've been in where initially I worried about performing a piece of music well enough to not embarrass myself but as I practiced it and performed it more often those worries disappeared and so did the stress. I think most of us have deals like this that have happened in our lives.

So maybe by mid season this offensive line, and Webb himself, finally do get to looking like we've been wishing they would. Experienced observers claim there's enough talent there to do it so maybe they just need to build on some success week after week until they "get it". Just something to ponder.

How stress blocks short-term memory
September 19, 2012

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By watching individual neurons at work, a group of psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed just how stress can addle the mind, as well as how neurons in the brain’s prefrontal cortex help “remember” information in the first place.

Stress has long been pegged as the enemy of attention, disrupting focus and doing substantial damage to working memory — the short-term juggling of information that allows us to do all the little things that make us productive.

Working memory is both short-term (on the order of seconds) and flexible, allowing the brain to hold a large amount of information close at hand to perform complex tasks. Without it, you would have forgotten the first half of this sentence while reading the second half.

The prefrontal cortex is vital to working memory. ”In many respects, you’d look pretty normal without a prefrontal cortex,” said Craig Berridge, UW-Madison psychology professor. “You don’t need that part of the brain to hear or talk, to keep long-term memories, or to remember what you did as a child or what you read in the newspaper three days ago.”

But without your prefrontal cortex you’d be unable to stay on task or modulate your emotions well. “People without a prefrontal cortex are very distractible,” Berridge said. “They’re very impulsive. They can be very argumentative.”

The neurons of the prefrontal cortex help store information for short periods. Like a chalkboard, these neurons can be written with information, erased when that information is no longer needed, and rewritten with something new.
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David M. Devilbiss, de-stressing

It’s how the neurons maintain access to that short-term information that leaves them vulnerable to stress.

David Devilbiss, a scientist working with Berridge and lead author on a study published today in the journal PLOS Computational Biology (open access), applied a new statistical modeling approach to show that rat prefrontal neurons were firing and re-firing to keep recently stored information fresh.

“Even though these neurons communicate on a scale of every thousandth of a second, they know what they did one second to one-and-a-half seconds ago,”

Devilbiss said. “But if the neuron doesn’t stimulate itself again within a little more than a second, it’s lost that information.”

How stress interferes with short-term memory

Apply some stress — in the researchers’ case, a loud blast of white noise in the presence of rats working on a maze designed to test working memory — and many neurons are distracted from reminding themselves of … what was it we were doing again?

“We’re simultaneously watching dozens of individual neurons firing in the rats’ brains, and under stress those neurons get even more active,” said Devilbiss, whose work was supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health. “But what they’re doing is not retaining information important to completing the maze. They’re reacting to other things, less useful things.”

Without the roar of white noise, which has been shown to impair rats in the same way it does monkeys and humans, the maze-runners were reaching their goal about 90 percent of the time. Under stress, the animals completed the test at a 65 percent clip, with many struggling enough to fall to blind chance.

Recordings of the electrical activity of prefrontal cortex neurons in the maze-running rats showed these neurons were unable to hold information key to finding the next chocolate chip reward. Instead, the neurons were frenetic, reacting to distractions such as noises and smells in the room.

The dangers of stress-related distraction

“The literature tells us that stress plays a role in more than half of all workplace accidents, and a lot of people have to work under what we would consider a great deal of stress,” Devilbiss said. “Air traffic controllers need to concentrate and focus with a lot riding on their actions. People in the military have to carry out these thought processes in conditions that would be very distracting, and now we know that this distraction is happening at the level of individual cells in the brain.”

The researchers’ work may suggest new directions for treatment of prefrontal cortex dysfunction.

“Based on drug studies, it had been believed stress simply suppressed prefrontal cortex activity,” Berridge said. “These studies demonstrate that rather than suppressing activity, stress modifies the nature of that activity. Treatments that keep neurons on their self-stimulating task while shutting out distractions may help protect working memory.”


http://www.wisc.edu/

Wonder if this is why Cutler continues to struggle in big games......

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Originally Posted by Riczaj01

Wonder if this is why Cutler continues to struggle in big games......

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Rather than muddy the point about the line I was waiting for someone else to bring that up. Thanks Ric.

I think it's entirely possible that it's been affecting him the same way and just like the lineman he needs to overcome it if it is. He's under more stress than they are because even more is expected of him and he's always been the guy the media loves to hate and critiques in the harshest way and under the toughest standards possible.

So they say he always does his worst in big games and what happens? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. He's expected to do badly and in his unconscious brain that thought is there so the amount of stress increases and it slows down his thought process. Bingo....bad decisions, picks and a poor performance.

Of course it also happens that the line seems to have it's worst games at the same time he does so they're not doing much to alleviate his stress. The writers and talking heads seldom consider that factor and it always makes me wonder why some of them get paid so well to only analyze half of the reality rather than all of it. :rolleyes:

This would also explain why Webb seems to have so much more trouble during away games rather than home games.

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Originally Posted by soulman

Rather than muddy the point about the line I was waiting for someone else to bring that up. Thanks Ric.

I think it's entirely possible that it's been affecting him the same way and just like the lineman he needs to overcome it if it is. He's under more stress than they are because even more is expected of him and he's always been the guy the media loves to hate and critiques in the harshest way and under the toughest standards possible.

So they say he always does his worst in big games and what happens? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. He's expected to do badly and in his unconscious brain that thought is there so the amount of stress increases and it slows down his thought process. Bingo....bad decisions, picks and a poor performance.

Of course it also happens that the line seems to have it's worst games at the same time he does so they're not doing much to alleviate his stress. The writers and talking heads seldom consider that factor and it always makes me wonder why some of them get paid so well to only analyze half of the reality rather than all of it. :rolleyes:

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Seriously, don't laugh, but this would also explain Rex Grossman's decline. I thought (in the beginning, and pre-injury) that he was solid. I believed we had found our franchise QB in Rex Grossman. The messageboards were going crazy with happy Bears fans believing Rex was "The Answer" to our problems at QB.

Just like when we got Jay Cutler.

Then both Rex and Jay, got hammered/beaten by defenses and seemed to decline after that. In the end, Rex looked like he was going to wet himself, he looked SO scared. Man, he had that frightened look in his eyes.

I'm now seeing the beginning of "The Look" in Jay Cutler. That "deer in the headlights" look. And in those games "Bad Jay" stinks.

Rex didn't put as much into games as Jay does. I'm not giving Rex the credit of being in his league...

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Originally Posted by XaosGorilla

This would also explain why Webb seems to have so much more trouble during away games rather than home games.

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That's because he's not sure where the closest Taco Bell or McDonalds is. When you weigh 335lbs and you have a Big Mac Attack or it's Taco Tuesday not being able to get your fix is probably really stressful. :lol-027:

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Originally Posted by Henry Burris

Rex didn't put as much into games as Jay does. I'm not giving Rex the credit of being in his league...

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Yeah, there not even in the same ball park as far as quarterbacking talent goes. Cutler has played on teams who have struggled to win his entire adult career including college Grossman did not. Rex was used to winning games whereas Jay is more used to losing them.

There's also the matter of Jay Cutler being a hell of a lot more of a competitor in every sense of the word than Grossman ever was. We've all seen Rex wet his pants but I've never seen that with Jay Cutler. Rex got scared whereas Jay gets righteously pissed and frustrated. Big difference.

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The theory makes some sense to me. I can remember a lot of situations that I've been in where initially I worried about performing a piece of music well enough to not embarrass myself but as I practiced it and performed it more often those worries disappeared and so did the stress. I think most of us have deals like this that have happened in our lives.

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If Jay can have a good outing against Dallas, in a prime time evening game, and get his confidence, and then build on that this season, it sure would be sweet. Right now I blame most of his problems on the offensive line. But it's not all on the oline.

I'm not saying Jay = Rex.

Jay is beginning to look like Rex on the field now when he's "Bad Jay." He's not there yet. Maybe he never gets there. I'm hoping he gets on track against Dallas and keeps on track.

For those of you with short memories, "Good Rex" was a good QB. But over time, we didn't see so much of him anymore. Only "Bad Rex" showed up.

I hated that. I'm not so keen on "Bad Jay" now either.