Dr So Hyun Park

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Public Health and Sport Sciences (PHSS) at the University of Exeter, under the mentorship of Professor Mark Wilson.

My background is in cognitive motor control, with a particularly interest in understanding the mechanisms underpinning performance failure through the lens of the Theory of Reinvestment (Masters, 1992; Masters & Maxwell, 2008) and Attentional Control Theory: Sport (Eysenck & Wilson, 2016). I am interested in how internal (e.g., intrusive thoughts, worry) and/or external (e.g., visually salient and/or threatening cues) factors can influence visual attention, cognitive functions, and motivational behaviours/performances in human performance. My objective is to leverage these frameworks to find innovative ways to prevent performance decline (i.e., how to stay in the zone) and recover from performance decline (i.e., how to get back into the zone), effectively briding the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical applications in sports and health sciences. 

I completed my PhD in 2021 at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, under the supervision of Professor Rich Masters. My doctoral research focused on cognitive aspects of motor control, specifically: 

• the relationship between inhibition function and the propensity for conscious processing during motor tasks
• the influence of colour on inhibition function, exploring how colour such as red and green affect motor response
• the impact of environmental factors such as crowd hostility and background colour on football penalty-kicking behaviour