The complete failure to perform in crucial situations can be a common psychological phenomenon. Experiments on monkeys have shown that the phenomenon of “collapse” under pressure is related to a decrease in neuronal activity.
“We see this phenomenon everywhere, in sports and beyond,” said Steven Chase, a neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.
Chase and his colleagues studied what happens in the brain that leads to a significant decrease in performance, and published their findings in the journal Neuron on September 12.
The phenomenon of collapsing under pressure occurs not only in humans. Just as a tennis player might miss a critical shot, monkeys can also perform poorly in high-stakes situations.
The phenomenon of collapsing under pressure occurs not only in humans. (Illustrative photo).
The “jackpot” situation of psychology
The research team set up a computer test in which rhesus monkeys received rewards after quickly and accurately moving a cursor to a target. Each trial indicated whether the reward would be small, medium, large, or “jackpot”.
The jackpot reward is rare and holds special value, creating a situation characterized by “bet big, win big.”
Using a small chip implanted in the monkeys’ brains with electrodes, the research team monitored how neuronal activity changed when receiving different rewards. The chip was placed in the motor cortex, a region of the frontal lobe that controls movement.
The researchers found that in “jackpot” situations, the activity of neurons related to motor preparation decreased. Motor preparation is how the brain calculates to complete a movement—similar to aiming an arrow at a target before shooting. The decline in motor preparation suggests that the monkeys’ brains were not ready, resulting in poorer performance.
This finding “helps us understand that behavior influenced by reward outcomes is not linear,” commented Bita Moghaddam, a behavioral neuroscientist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.
To some extent, “you do not necessarily perform better as the reward increases,” Moghaddam said. She noted it would be interesting to see how other brain regions respond in jackpot reward situations, as many brain areas may be involved in this process.
Maintaining motor performance
The researchers then investigated why motor preparation declines in high-stakes situations.
An analysis of the relationship between reward motivation and neural preparation with the monkeys’ motor performance showed that as rewards increased, neuronal activity reached a maximum preparatory level.
For even larger rewards, the preparation began to “decline,” pushing the brain out of the optimal region for performance. The researchers termed this the “neural bias hypothesis.”
Chase noted that the research team is also interested in whether it is possible to avoid the phenomenon of “psychological collapse” under pressure, or whether findings from brain research could help optimize motor performance.
However, he emphasized that the team first needs to study this phenomenon further in humans.
