Choking or Panicking
I just ran across an old yet interesting New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell on choking versus panicking. In short, choking is the “loss of instinct”– the instinctual responses that come with experience (muscle memory, skill, what have you)– in favor of the explicit, deliberate thinking that novices have. Panicking is the “reversion to instinct”–the most primordial survival instincts that block both experienced skill and novice deliberation.