Why some people choke and others panic

Why some people choke and others panic. Most people would think they are one in the same. Malcolm Gladwell explains the difference and distinction between the two in The Art of Failure. “To choke or panic is considered to be as bad as to quit.” said Gladwell. Choking is about thinking too much and panic is thinking too little. Explicit learning and implicit learning are used in helping to describe what it means to choke or panic in certain situations. Gladwell uses different scenarios of how failure happens to understanding why failure happens. Choking is a more familiar term in reference to competition in sports or game playing.
Gladwell uses the example of a tennis match and in detail outlines the misfortune of choking in a match that was almost won. The questions describe the loss of instinct, but what triggered the failure? Did she realize how close she was to winning? Did she look across the net and see the greatest tennis player of her generation? Did she realize that she’s never won Wimbledon? It’s like she forgot everything she was taught and played like she was a beginner. Choking doesn’t make sense. We are capable of performing and winning, but yet something happens and the instinct of playing the game to the best of our ability is lost. Gladwell explains explicit learning as a concept of acquiring skills and knowledge to perform a certain task and implicit learning is conceived as a natural, simple process in learning. In a competition, when suddenly the stress of the game or circumstances becomes evident the explicit system takes over and the game is lost. However, if she can overcome the stress and use the natural, simple instincts of the game, could it be won? Gladwell said, “Panic is something else altogether.” Panic is also called perceptual narrowing, when the mind goes blank and the stress wipes out the short term memory.
In Gladwell’s example of the divers, they forgot their resources and the available air they had.
All they thought was they needed air, panic dissolved their instinct. Panic in a sense, is more critical than choking. When flying an airplane at night and the horizon is lost and it’s foggy, would give the pilot an inability to sense the accuracy of his flying. The horizon allows you to see the wings are level, if the horizon is lost, the pilot must rely on the instruments of the plane. Being unfamiliar with the instruments and flying blind would lead to a high level of panic. Again, the mind shuts down and obsesses not on the instrument panel which could have saved them but on where the lights were at the vineyard. Had the pilot reverted to explicit learning and focused on the instruments panel they could have gotten to safety. Gladwell said, “Panicking is a conventional failure, choking is paradoxical failure.”
Conventional being a common failure and paradoxical being an uncommon failure. He also states that, “choking requires us to concern ourselves less with the performer and more with the situation in which the performance occurs.” “Choking is a central part of the drama of athletic competition.” Can an audience play a part in the choking process of an athlete? Can something be said or announced that triggers failure of the performance of an athlete that has perfected the game? Does something happen to a student when taking a test that causes them to fail? How does a pilot or a diver forget what to do when in the middle of a task or exercise that produces panic and becomes life threatening? Gladwell explains in great detail with different examples and relates real life experiences in The Art of Failure, why some people choke and others panic. Both being negative and clearly explained by Gladwell, yet easily confused as the same. He breaks down the how of the failure and helps with the understanding of why the failure occurs. Choking being something that can be seen and anticipated. Panic being a result of losing focus and blinded by fear of the unknown.