The role of working memory in sport

The concept of working memory has received a great deal of attention in the last couple of decades and discussions of working memory are now common in almost all branches of psychology, including cognitive, clinical, social, developmental, and educational settings. Therefore, it is surprising that the concept of working memory has received a lot less attention in the field of sport psychology compared to other branches of psychology, especially since research in sport psychology has increasingly incorporated cognitive concepts such as attention, perception and decision-making, which are purported to rely heavily on working memory. Thus, it is essential, in our opinion, to systematically investigate the working memory system in the field of sports, which offers a fruitful domain to explore the validity of models developed in other fields. This review provides an overview of working memory theory and discusses its relevance in sport psychology. We end the review by giving an outlook of potentially fruitful research areas on working memory in sport. Verf.-Referat