General Overview
Everyone has experienced undesirable outcomes from acting impulsively. In the cognitive sciences, we often distinguish impulsive choices from impulsive reactions. Impulsive choices usually unfold over slower time scales (seconds to minutes) and lead to an immediate reward, usually at the expense of a delayed goal. For example, a months’ long diet can be sabotaged by one impulsive act, eating a donut. In contrast, impulsive reactions involve much faster time scales (milliseconds) and represent rapid, counterproductive reactions made in fast-paced, high-pressure situations. In sports, impulsive reactions generate all sorts of performance mistakes and errors. In baseball, for example, an outfielder rushing a throw and throwing to the wrong base or a hitter swinging at a bad two-strike pitch with the go-ahead run in scoring position.
The brains of athletes are equipped with a uniquely tuned system for controlling strong impulsive reactions. While athletes are better at controlling impulsive reactions than their non-athlete peers, athletes differ in their ability to control these reactions during performance. Some athletes have exceptional control over strong motor impulses and can suppress them very quickly to minimize making impulsive mistakes. Other athletes are less proficient at suppressing these impulses, so they are much more likely to act on them. For hitters, this translates into higher rates of swinging at unwanted pitches (i.e., higher chase rates), particularly in clutch situations.