Evaluator standpoint and ecological context shape psychological momentum measurement in sport

Psychological momentum (PM) has been widely discussed in sport psychology, yet the term has been used to describe different levels of evidence, including objective performance sequences, observer judgments, retrospective reconstructions, simulated experiences, and real-time reports from athletes. This conceptual ambiguity makes it difficult to determine whether previous studies have examined the same construct, different components of a broader PM process, or related but distinct phenomena. The present conceptual analysis clarifies how PM-related evidence has been obtained in sport research and how such evidence should be interpreted according to evaluator standpoint and ecological context. First, major theoretical accounts of PM are reviewed, including PM as psychological force, an antecedent-consequence process, a dynamic system, persistence and carryover of mental experience, and objective performance dynamics. Building on this multilevel view, the article proposes a framework organized around two axes: evaluator standpoint and access to first-person PM experience, and the ecological representativeness of the assessment context. This framework distinguishes third-person or other-perceived PM, vicarious or simulated actor PM, reconstructed actor PM, and actor-experienced PM. Within the actor pathway, objective events acquire psychological meaning through expectation-based embodied appraisal, while affective and bodily states may operate recursively as both inputs to and consequences of appraisal. The article argues that laboratory/scenario-based, video-based, and live-competition-based approaches should not be treated as competing methods, but as complementary approaches that provide different kinds of PM-related evidence. Clarifying these distinctions can improve construct validity in PM research and support more precise interpretation of findings across experimental, video-assisted, and field-based studies.