Perception of difficulty is defined as our subjective evaluation of the requirements of a task (execution, exercise, descent, competition). It is a generic term to be distinguished between perception of physical effort and perception of difficulty itself in terms of information about task performance. A further distinction refers to before execution, i.e., estimated difficulty, and during or after execution, i.e., the perceived difficulty itself.
Several studies conclude that perceived difficulty is not directly related to the difficulty of the task or to our subjective performance, but reflects the amount of resources invested in the performance. Therefore, it can be interpreted that when we express that a slope will be difficult, or that it has been difficult, we mean that we will make a great effort or that we have worked hard to complete it.
The effort of our will may present a resistance that must be overcome so our muscular effort will be more bearable. If we know that we can improve our performance but do not do so, a possible cause is that the effort required by our will to do so is too much for us and we are not willing to make it, so we prefer to increase our muscular effort and continue with an inefficient technique. Using our will is not comfortable since it requires a change in our habits.
A distinction that deserves clarification is that between the difficulty of the task and the difficulty of the goal. While the former refers to the characteristics of the execution (the restrictions that limit the possibilities of action), the latter refers to a certain level of difficulty of the achievement reached.
Self-assignment, or goal setting, generally leads us to invest greater effort. Cognitive theories of motivation analyze the relationship between goals, effort, and the discrepancy in which we would maintain our effort as long as we perceive a discrepancy between our goal and the actual outcome.
The Motivational theory of André Kukla, professor of philosophy and psychology, argues that we choose the minimum effort that allows us to achieve the goal and, if we consider that the task was easy, then we believe that the effort invested was little. This theory holds that, if the level of perceived difficulty increases, then so does the effort. In other words, our expended effort and consequent performance are proportional to the perceived difficulty.
The positive effect of perceived difficulty is important during ski learning. Some instructors/coaches tend not to set ambitious goals to avoid frustrating their learners/athletes. According to the context, it is necessary to assign significant challenges that induce real effort on our part, always within certain limits because, if we evaluate the task as too difficult, we may stop making an effort to learn it.
“The amount of effort is limited by maximum subjectivity,” says Kukla. When the level of perceived task difficulty is such that we perceive that the effort required appears to be greater than the imagined maximum, i.e., when we perceive that our effort is destined to fail, then we decide not to engage and therefore our effort disappears.
When the instructor/coach increases the difficulty of a task, some learners/athletes will perceive this increase as moderate but others may perceive it as greater. This difference is because sensitive skiers tend to overestimate the difficulty while less sensitive ones tend to underestimate it.
When we believe that our performance is determined by our own ability to learn, we tend to invest more effort, achieving greater results than if we believe that performance is based on our own natural aptitudes and abilities.
Our conviction as to whether or not susceptible factors are under control affects our performance. If we believe that failure is related to lack of ability or lack of effort -both of which are controllable factors- we will tend to persist in reaching our goal. Conversely, if we believe that failures are due to our stable internal factors such as fitness, bodily characteristics, or external factors beyond control (terrain, weather, snow conditions), we will be prone to give up.
