A survey of the characteristics and attitudes of Norwegian orienteers was undertaken through meetings and questionnaires sent to more than 2,000 members of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation. Approx. 50% returned the questionnaires, which is approx. 7% of the total membership. The results indicate that the characteristics of the Norwegian orienteers tend to be similar to those in Sweden and Australia. As far as attitudes among the members are concerned, there is a clear indication that "time consumption" and "the lack of visibility" are the basic problems related to recruit, media, sponsors and of course present members. In order to increase the membership and financial support from sponsors, the basic suggestions are:
Cognitive processes are of vital importance in most sports: Information of often quickly changing character has to be selected and picked up, and decisions about future actions have to be made. It is therefore not exaggerated to presume that cognitive skills are at least in many, if not in all sports factors that clearly restrict performance.
This is normally claimed for the sport of orienteering, where cognitive processes have been subject of many studies. This paper reviews recent research in information processing and decision making in orienteering. The main cognitive demands that have been investigated are the selection of relevant map information for route choice, the comparison between map and terrain in map reading and in relocation, and the quick awareness of mistakes. The most frequently used research paradigms are presented, and some important findings are briefly summarized. Based on this review, a model of map reading is presented that basically adopts Neisser's (1976) idea of the perceptual circle. In a concluding section, some implications for the training of specific cognitive schemes for map reading and relocation are made.
Orienteering is a physically very demanding sport, but, to the extent that a comparison is meaningful, the cognitive demands may be held to be even higher than the physical. Finding one's way through unknown terrain with the help of only map and compass involves a number of processes that constitute aspects of cognition: planning, thinking, remembering, and recognition, to name but a few. Quite naturally, therefore, various aspects of cognition in orienteering have been the objects of a number of studies, of which to date about 20 have been published in English.
Almost without exception, the published studies have adopted a cognitive psychology, or information processing perspective. They can thus be classified within what Winograd and Flores (1986) call a "rationalistic tradition". The hallmark of this tradition is a "representation hypothesis", which very fundamentally rests on a dualism between an "outer", "real", and objective world versus its representation which constitutes an "inner", subjective world in the mind of the individual.
Within current research on cognition, however, the rationalistic tradition is increasingly challenged, and its dualistic basis is rejected on several grounds. Ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979) and phenomenography (Marton, 1981, 1995; Marton & Booth, in press) are but two examples of approaches that have provided non dualistic theoretical alternatives.
In this paper a review is made of the existing studies of cognition in orienteering, focusing on their theoretical foundations and the methodological approaches applied. In conclusion, an alternative theoretical framework is outlined, and its methodological consequences are briefly discussed. From consulting the map, the orienteer develops a conception of how the structure of certain parts of the terrain will appear to him or her. This conception (preconceived, or "pre experienced", version) of the terrain (as depicted on the map) has to be harmonized with (attuned to) the conceived version of the terrain as perceptually experienced. The claim is made that what the orienteer experiences should be conceived in terms of affordances (Gibson, 1979). These affordances are lines, or trajectories, of potential movement through the terrain.
"If you can't make the putts and can't get the man in from second on the bottom of the ninth, you're not going to win enough football games in this league, and that's the problem we had today."
- Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, on why his team lost