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Journal ArticleDOI

Internal and External Imagery Perspective Measurement and Use in Imagining Open and Closed Sports Skills: An Exploratory Study

01 Apr 2007-Perceptual and Motor Skills (Ammons Scientific Ltd.)-Vol. 104, Iss: 2, pp 387-404
TL;DR: Analysis indicated that the questionnaire gave a general imagery perspective preference but was not a strong predictor of imagery used on specific occasions, and the three measures of imagery perspective were equivalent in imagining performing particular skills.
Abstract: This study explored the measurement and use of internal and external imagery perspectives during imagery of open and closed sports skills. Participants (N=41; male=23; female = 18), ages 14 to 28 (M=19.4 yr.; sD=3.1), who were recruited from undergraduate classes in human movement and physical education, and local sporting teams, completed the Imagery Use Questionnaire and then imagined performing eight common sports skills, four open skills and four closed skills, in a random order. Participants provided concurrent verbalisation during their imagery. Immediately after imagining each skill, participants completed a rating scale and retrospective verbalisation of imagery perspective use. Analysis indicated that the questionnaire gave a general imagery perspective preference but was not a strong predictor of imagery used on specific occasions. The three measures of imagery perspective were equivalent in imagining performing particular skills. Participants experienced more internal imagery than external imagery while imagining the eight sports skills, but there was no significant difference between perspective use on the open and closed skills.

Summary (4 min read)

Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 3

  • Research has shown that imagery is an effective performance enhancement tool and is one of the psychological skills that sports psychologists and athletes use most (Murphy & Martin, 2002; Morris, Spittle, & Perry, 2004; Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005) .
  • Internal imagery involves the person imagining being inside their body and experiencing those sensations that might occur while performing in the real situation.

Measurement of Imagery Perspective Use

  • The development of appropriate measures of imagery perspective has been limited, consequently the measurement of imagery perspective use has been problematic, with many studies simply assigning participants to perspective training groups and assuming that they used the assigned perspective, or assigning participants to groups based on self-reported preferences.
  • The correlations between the CV, RV, and RS were all above .9, indicating a large effect size and a very high level of agreement between the three state measurement techniques.
  • The only comments consistently made were that CV seemed to slightly slow down the imagery process, but that it did not change how participants imaged.
  • To measure imagery perspective accurately, the results of this exploratory study suggest that a specific state measure, e.g., CV, RS, or RV, is more appropriate than a general questionnaire.
  • Thus, there has been a Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 16 problem with ensuring the success of independent variable manipulation in the imagery literature.

Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 4

  • There have been two main types of measure of imagery perspective use (Morris, et al., 2005) .
  • Trait measures use words like "usually", "generally", or "typically", because they are not focusing on specific events requiring temporal orientation or limitation, e.g., the Imagery Use Questionnaire (IUQ; Hall, Rodgers, & Barr, 1990) .
  • Retrospective reports are subject to memory lapses as well as spontaneous reconstruction of events or processes based on known outcomes (Anderson, 1981; Brewer, Van Raalte, Linder, & Van Raalte, 1991) .
  • Thus, a concurrent technique may provide a viable option for measuring imagery perspective use during imagery by providing an account of cognitive processing at the time it occurs, rather than retrospectively (Morris, et al., 2005) .

Imagery Perspective Use

  • Most research on imagery perspectives has focused on the influence of perspective on an outcome variable, such as performance, rather than focusing on which perspective participants use.
  • Some researchers have reported that the performance of different types of tasks was affected differently by the perspectives, with external imagery producing greater gains on one task and internal imagery on another (e.g., White & Hardy, 1995; Glisky, Williams, & Kihlstrom, 1996; Hardy & Callow, 1999) , but these have not investigated perspective use.
  • In imagery of the eight sports skills, participants also reported using more internal imagery than Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 17 external imagery.
  • This also seems to coincide with the child development literature on perspective-taking, which suggests that the ability to take on the observer's perspective is not something the authors are born with, but needs to be developed (Epley, et al., 2004; Piaget, 1959; Rigal, 1996) .
  • Participants reported use of external imagery on the IUQ and during imagery trials, so external imagery, although not the default, may add something new and different to the imagery experience (Cox, 2002 : Morris, et al., 2004) or add to the useful information that is otherwise available (Hardy, 1997) .

Skill Type and Imagery Perspective Use

  • Several psychologists (Harris, 1986; McLean & Richardson, 1994; Annett, 1995) have suggested that closed skills might benefit more from internal imagery, whereas open skills might benefit most from external imagery.
  • For that reason, this exploratory study had two major aims.
  • The second major aim was to examine patterns of internal and external imagery perspective use during imagery of a variety of sports skills.
  • This pattern of use does not seem to support the suggestion of several researchers (e.g., Harris, 1986; McLean & Richardson, 1994) , who have proposed that learning and performance of closed skills would benefit more from an internal perspective, whereas open skills should benefit from an external perspective.

Participants

  • This exploratory study involved 23 male participants and 18 female participants with sporting experience, aged between 14 and 28, with a mean age of 19.4 years (SD = 3.12).
  • Participants were recruited from undergraduate classes in human movement and physical education, and local sporting teams.
  • Eleven participants reported they played cricket, six played netball, five played basketball, three played Australian Rules Football, three were rowers, two were swimmers, and two were triathletes.
  • There was one participant in each of the following activities: calisthenics, surfing, baseball, judo, soccer, running, recreation, 400 m running, and Australian Football League (AFL) umpiring.

Measures

  • Concurrent Verbalisation (CV) -This describes the process where individuals verbalise the information they are attending to and their conscious cognitive processes at the time when they are consciously attending to a process.
  • Instructions for CV, given before imagery, emphasised describing everything experienced while performing the imagery, with special emphasis on reporting whether the participants experienced the imagery from inside or outside the body.
  • The CV was recorded on audiotape and transcribed later.
  • Two independent raters scored the transcripts from CV for percentage of internal and external imagery.

Imagery Task

  • Participants were required to imagine performing eight sports skills.
  • Four of these skills were classified as open skills and four were classified as closed skills.
  • Instructions for imagery of these skills emphasised creating as realistic an imagery experience as possible, describing the use of different sense modalities and the experience of emotions.
  • Instructions were not provided that would encourage the use of either imagery perspective.
  • The open skills participants imagined were hitting a tennis ball back over the net, defending against an attack in a team ball game, catching a ball thrown when not knowing to which side it would be thrown, and dodging a ball unexpectedly thrown at the person.

Procedure

  • Participants were recruited from undergraduate classes in sports psychology and local sporting teams.
  • After providing informed consent, participants completed the IUQ to assess typical use of imagery perspective.
  • Participants imagined for two trials on each of four open and four closed skills.
  • During imagery of the skills, CV was recorded.
  • Finally, participants answered a series of debriefing questions.

Data Analysis

  • Pearson product moment correlation co-efficients were calculated among the imagery perspective measures (IUQ, CV, RS, and RV) to determine the similarity of Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 12 these measures for assessing perspective use.
  • Then an independent samples t-test was conducted on the IUQ imagery perspective items to assess general reported imagery perspective use.
  • Descriptive statistics were compared on CV, RS and RV for internal and external imagery use during the imagery of the sports skills to assess actual imagery use on imagery trials and differences between imagery perspective use on the individual sports skills.
  • Finally, analysis of variance was conducted on scores on the CV, RS, and RV to determine any differences between perspective use for all the open skills compared to all the closed skills.

Concurrent Verbalisation (CV), Retrospective Verbalisation (RV), and Rating

  • Scores from CV, RV, and RS, averaged for the two trials for each skill are summarised in Table 2 .
  • The scores for the RS are also presented in Figure 1 to highlight the variation between scores on individual skills.
  • Possible scores range from 0 to 100, with a low score indicating more internal imagery and a high score indicating more external imagery.
  • Results indicated that, for every skill, participants experienced more internal imagery than external imagery.
  • The sports skills with the lowest scores, indicating the most internal imagery content, were hitting a tennis ball back over the net and catching a ball thrown at you when not knowing to which side it would be thrown.

This indicates variability between the responses of different participants for the same

  • Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 14 skill, probably due to participants reporting either high internal or high external imagery content, with few rating moderate amounts of internal and external imagery for each skill.
  • The means for the four open and the four closed skills were both below 50, indicating that participants experienced more internal imagery than external imagery in both skill types.

Discussion

  • The perspective adopted during imagery affects the imagery experience and may mediate the relationship between imagery and learning or performance effects (Morris, et al., 2005) .
  • The measurement of imagery perspective use in the past has been limited to sporadic use of retrospective approaches, with limited development of appropriate tools.
  • In this exploratory study the measurement of internal and external imagery perspective use was investigated with several state and trait measurement approaches to assist in the development of appropriate imagery perspective measures.
  • To aid in the development of knowledge related to the role of imagery perspectives in imagination of sports skills, patterns of internal and external imagery perspective Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills 15 use during imagery of a variety of sports skills were also examined.
  • A range of open and closed skills were compared, based on the hypothesis that the type of task, open or closed, might affect imagery perspective use (e.g., Harris & Robinson, 1986; McLean & Richardson, 1994; Morris, et al., 2005) .

Methodological Issues

  • In the present study, a higher use of internal imagery overall was found.
  • The study does not provide information on which perspective is more effective for performance enhancement of these skills.
  • Thus, research is needed to investigate internal and external training effects on performance.
  • If participants were given more descriptive detail of the event and also the event was made more realistic or of a longer duration, then imagery perspective use patterns may differ.

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Imagery Perspective Measurement and Open and Closed Sports Skills
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Internal and External Imagery Perspective Measurement and Use in Imagining Open
and Closed Sports Skills: An Exploratory Study
Michael Spittle and Tony Morris
1. School of Human Movement and Sport Sciences
University of Ballarat
Victoria, Australia
2. School of Human Movement, Recreation and Performance and Centre for Ageing,
Rehabilitation, Exercise and Sport
Victoria University of Technology
Victoria, Australia
Address correspondence to Dr Michael Spittle, School of Human Movement and
Sport Sciences, University of Ballarat, PO Box 663, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
3353, or email (m.spittle@ballarat.edu.au). 20

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Summary. - This study explored the measurement and use of internal and
external imagery perspectives during imagery of open and closed sports skills.
Participants (n=41; male = 23; female = 18), ages 14 to 28 (M = 19.4 years; SD =
3.12), who were recruited from undergraduate classes in human movement and
physical education, and local sporting teams, completed the Imagery Use
Questionnaire (IUQ; Hall, Rodgers, & Barr, 1990) and then imagined performing
eight common sports skills, four open skills and four closed skills, in a random order.
Participants provided concurrent verbalisation (CV) during their imagery.
Immediately after imagining each skill, participants completed a rating scale (RS)
and retrospective verbalisation (RV) of imagery perspective use. Results indicated
that the IUQ gave a general imagery perspective preference, but was not a strong
predictor of imagery used on specific occasions. The CV, RS, and RV were
equivalent measures of imagery perspective used to imagine performing particular
skills. Participants experienced more internal imagery than external imagery while
imagining the eight sports skills, but there was no significant difference between
perspective use on the open and closed skills.

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Imagery is a process where an individual recalls or creates sensory
experiences in the absence of external stimuli usually associated with these
experiences (Murphy, 1994). Research has shown that imagery is an effective
performance enhancement tool and is one of the psychological skills that sports
psychologists and athletes use most (Murphy & Martin, 2002; Morris, Spittle, &
Perry, 2004; Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005). One variable that may affect the
effective use of imagery is the imagery perspective the individual adopts (Morris, et
al., 2005). Mahoney and Avener (1977) defined perspective in terms of whether the
image is internal or external. They proposed that external imagery occurs when the
person views themselves from the perspective of an external observer, much like
watching oneself on TV. Internal imagery involves the person imagining being inside
their body and experiencing those sensations that might occur while performing in
the real situation. If imagery perspective affects the effective use of imagery, then
investigating the use of imagery perspectives is imperative to understanding how to
use imagery effectively (Morris, et al., 2005). To examine imagery perspective, it is
important that imagery perspective use be measured appropriately. This study
examined the crucial issues of measurement of imagery perspective preferences and
imagery perspective use. In addition, because the type of skill or task being imagined
might affect imagery use, the influence of task type on imagery use was considered.
Measurement of Imagery Perspective Use
The development of appropriate measures of imagery perspective has been
limited, consequently the measurement of imagery perspective use has been
problematic, with many studies simply assigning participants to perspective training
groups and assuming that they used the assigned perspective, or assigning
participants to groups based on self-reported preferences.

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There have been two main types of measure of imagery perspective use
(Morris, et al., 2005). First, preference or trait measures ask a person to make an
overall or global assessment of their usual perspective use, with the person not
oriented towards a specific previous event. Trait measures use words like “usually”,
“generally”, or “typically”, because they are not focusing on specific events requiring
temporal orientation or limitation, e.g., the Imagery Use Questionnaire (IUQ; Hall,
Rodgers, & Barr, 1990). Second, imagery perspective use has been assessed by
presenting a scene to imagine and, following imagery, asking people to rate their
imagery of that scene on a scale, e.g., the Movement Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ;
Hall, & Pongrac, 1983) and the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire
(VMIQ; Isaac, Marks, & Russell, 1986). These reports are retrospective in the sense
that they ask people to recall a specific event, which requires a temporal orientation.
Retrospective reports are subject to memory lapses as well as spontaneous
reconstruction of events or processes based on known outcomes (Anderson, 1981;
Brewer, Van Raalte, Linder, & Van Raalte, 1991). Thus, a concurrent technique may
provide a viable option for measuring imagery perspective use during imagery by
providing an account of cognitive processing at the time it occurs, rather than
retrospectively (Morris, et al., 2005). Concurrent Verbalisation (CV) is a process
where an individual verbalises their cognitive processes while performing the task. It
is “thinking aloud” (Ericsson & Simon, 1980). CV has been used successfully in the
study of mental processes, such as problem-solving (e.g., Newell & Simon, 1972),
visual and verbal coding (e.g., Schuck & Leahy, 1966), cue-probability learning
(e.g., Brehmer, 1974), concept learning (e.g., Bower & King, 1967), mental
multiplication (e.g., Dansereau & Gregg, 1966), performance on intelligence tests
(e.g., Merz, 1969), concentration during running (Schomer, 1986), and expertise in

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chess (DeGroot, 1965). Studies on imaginal activity in non sport situations have used
the CV technique (e.g., Bertini, Lewis, & Witkin, 1969; Kazdin, 1975, 1976, 1979;
Klinger, 1978; Klos & Singer, 1981; Petre & Blackwell, 1999). In a study of non
sport motor skills, Annett (1986) investigated imagery of everyday skills, such as
knot tying and forward rolls, with CV. Verbalisation can also be used retrospectively
to understand cognitive processes. Studies that have used a retrospective
verbalisation (RV) protocol include studies on concept learning (Hendrix, 1947;
Phelan, 1965), learned generalisations (Sowder, 1974), concept formation
(Rommetveit, 1960, 1965; Rommetveit & Kvale, 1965a, 1965b), and expert-novice
differences in tennis (McPherson, 2000). Despite their potential to provide rich
information on the content of imagery, neither CV nor RV has been used to explore
imagery perspective use.
Imagery Perspective Use
Most research on imagery perspectives has focused on the influence of
perspective on an outcome variable, such as performance, rather than focusing on
which perspective participants use. Questionnaire studies provide some insight into
imagery perspective use. In the questionnaire research on imagery perspectives,
researchers have typically employed a “trait” approach (Morris, et al., 2005). The
findings have been mixed, with some studies finding that elite or more successful
performers used more internal imagery than less elite/successful athletes (e.g.,
Mahoney & Avener, 1977; Doyle & Landers, 1980; Carpinter & Cratty, 1983; Barr
& Hall, 1992), some studies finding no difference between these categories of
performer (e.g., Highlen & Bennett, 1979; Meyers, Cooke, Cullen, & Liles, 1979;
Rotella, Gansneder, Ojala, & Billing, 1980; Hall, et al., 1990), or that elite athletes
used more external imagery (e.g., Ungerleider & Golding, 1991). Studies that have

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TL;DR: Internal mental imagery has a greater effect on muscle strength than external mental imagery does, and the combination of mental imagery and physical practice is more efficient than, or at least comparable to, physical execution with respect to strength performance.
Abstract: The aims of the present review were to (i) provide a critical overview of the current literature on the effects of mental imagery on muscular strength in healthy participants and patients with immobilization of the upper extremity (i.e., hand) and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), (ii) identify potential moderators and mediators of the "mental imagery-strength performance" relationship and (iii) determine the relative contribution of electromyography (EMG) and brain activities, neural and physiological adaptations in the mental imagery-strength performance relationship. This paper also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the contemporary literature and suggests possible directions for future research. Overall, the results reveal that the combination of mental imagery and physical practice is more efficient than, or at least comparable to, physical execution with respect to strength performance. Imagery prevention intervention was also effective in reducing of strength loss after short-term muscle immobilization and ACL. The present review also indicates advantageous effects of internal imagery (range from 2.6 to 136.3%) for strength performance compared with external imagery (range from 4.8 to 23.2%). Typically, mental imagery with muscular activity was higher in active than passive muscles, and imagining "lifting a heavy object" resulted in more EMG activity compared with imagining "lifting a lighter object". Thus, in samples of students, novices, or youth male and female athletes, internal mental imagery has a greater effect on muscle strength than external mental imagery does. Imagery ability, motivation, and self-efficacy have been shown to be the variables mediating the effect of mental imagery on strength performance. Finally, the greater effects of internal imagery than those of external imagery could be explained in terms of neural adaptations, stronger brain activation, higher muscle excitation, greater somatic and sensorimotor activation and physiological responses such as blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate.

65 citations


Cites background from "Internal and External Imagery Persp..."

  • ...Spittle and Morris (2007) reported no significant difference between imagery perspectives in open and closed sports skills, although the use of external imagery during imagery of closed skills tended to be higher than that during imagery of open skills....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is suggested that imagery perspective may not be an important variable in MP interventions, and MP combined with occupational therapy improves upper-extremity recovery after stroke.
Abstract: OBJECTIVE. This preliminary study sought to determine whether the imagery perspective used during mental practice (MP) differentially influenced performance outcomes after stroke. METHOD. Nineteen participants with unilateral subacute stroke (9 men and 10 women, ages 28–77) were randomly allocated to one of three groups. All groups received 30-min occupational therapy sessions 2×/wk for 6 wk. Experimental groups received MP training in functional tasks using either an internal or an external perspective; the control group received relaxation imagery training. Participants were pre- and posttested using the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment (FMA), the Jebsen–Taylor Test of Hand Function (JTTHF), and the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). RESULTS. At posttest, the internal and external experimental groups showed statistically similar improvements on the FMA and JTTHF (p < .05). All groups improved on the COPM (p < .05). CONCLUSION. MP combined with occupational therapy improves upper-extremity recovery after stroke. MP does not appear to enhance self-perception of performance. This preliminary study suggests that imagery perspective may not be an important variable in MP interventions

57 citations


Cites background or methods from "Internal and External Imagery Persp..."

  • ...Because perspective switching is a phenomenon known to occur (Gordon, Weinberg, & Jackson, 1994), it is important to monitor whether clients hold the perspective they are instructed to use (Spittle & Morris, 2007)....

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  • ...Scores ranged from 0 to 100; lower scores indicated more internal imagery use, and higher scores indicated more external imagery use (Spittle & Morris, 2007)....

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  • ...When using an external perspective, clients imagine performing the movements from the perspective of being outside their body; thus, they imagine being an observer of themselves in motion (Spittle & Morris, 2007)....

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  • ...…use, one rater (D. Nilsen) scored the four individual retrospective verbalization transcripts for the percentage of internal and external imagery used according to previously established methods (Spittle & Morris, 2007), and we calculated the mean of the four scores for each participant....

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  • ...…and to score The American Journal of Occupational Therapy 323 Downloaded From: http://ajot.aota.org/pdfaccess.ashx?url=/data/journals/ajot/929907/ on 06/17/2017 Terms of Use: http://AOTA.org/terms a perspective rating scale to determine which perspective they had used (see Spittle & Morris, 2007)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Findings highlight differential efficacy of internal and external visual imagery for performance improvement on complex sport skills in early stage motor learning in young male novices.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of internal and external visual imagery perspectives on performance accuracy of open and closed tennis skills (i.e., serve, forehand, and backhand) among novices. Thirty-six young male novices, aged 15-18 years, from a summer tennis program participated. Following initial skill acquisition (12 sessions), baseline assessments of imagery ability and imagery perspective preference were used to assign participants to one of three groups: internal imagery ( n = 12), external imagery ( n = 12), or a no-imagery (mental math exercise) control group ( n = 12). The experimental interventions of 15 minutes of mental imagery (internal or external) or mental math exercises followed by 15 minutes of physical practice were held three times a week for six weeks. The performance accuracy of the groups on the serve, forehand, and backhand strokes was measured at pre- and post-test using videotaping. Results showed significant increases in the performance accuracy of all three tennis strokes in all three groups, but serve accuracy in the internal imagery group and forehand accuracy in the external imagery group showed greater improvements, while backhand accuracy was similarly improved in all three groups. These findings highlight differential efficacy of internal and external visual imagery for performance improvement on complex sport skills in early stage motor learning.

44 citations


Cites background or methods from "Internal and External Imagery Persp..."

  • ...…have focused on perspective and functional use of imagery in different types of sport skills (Arvinen-Barrow et al., 2007; Fogarty & Morris, 2003; Spittle & Morris, 2007; Watt et al., 2008), but very limited research (e.g., Spittle, 2001) has addressed the effect of imagery perspectives on…...

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  • ...Also, according to Spittle and Morris (2007), a rating scale was used to control the relative time spent using internal and external perspectives during the imagery trials, using a 10-cm analogue scale, anchored at each end by 100% internal/0% external and the other end by 100% external/0% internal....

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  • ...This study followed prior researchers’ recommendations (Spittle, 2001; Spittle & Morris, 2007) to control for: (a) imagery ability and perspective preference in the assignment of participants to groups; (b) such moderator variables as age, gender, competitive level, and sport type; (c) having…...

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  • ...Similarly, in studying imagery perspective use of eight common sports skills (i.e., four open skills and four closed skills), Spittle and Morris (2007) found that imagery perspective use did not differ for open or closed skills, but imagers showed greater use of internal imagery while imagining the…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A positive correlation was observed between the two questionnaires, supporting findings on the componential basis of imagery, and dancers and karatekas had higher mean scores on imagery ability than the non-athlete group.
Abstract: While imagery research has become popular in recent years, little research has specifically investigated differences in imagery ability between open- and closed-skill sport activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the type of task, open or closed, affects vividness and controllability differently. Thirty female classic dancers (closed skill), 30 female karate athletes (open skill), and 30 female non-athlete students, between 14 and 20 years of age (M = 17.0, SD = 1.6), participated. They completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire, and the Subtraction of Parts Task. There was no difference in imagery ability between open- and closed-skill sport groups. Furthermore, dancers and karatekas had higher mean scores on imagery ability than the non-athlete group. A positive correlation was observed between the two questionnaires, supporting findings on the componential basis of imagery. This study contributed to increase the research in the specific area of open- and closed-skill sports and imagery ability.

30 citations


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  • ...Classic dance can be considered an artistic performance requiring closed skills, for which the environment is relatively constant and the activity is often self-paced ( Spittle & Morris, 2007 )....

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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the use of imagery according to Paivio's (1985) general analytic framework and found that participants used more motivational general-mastery imagery than recreational level participants.
Abstract: This study examined the use of imagery according to Paivio's (1985) general analytic framework. The aims were to examine functional differences in imagery use according to the five subscales of the SIQ, to investigate differences in imagery use by competitive level, and to explore the influence on the use of imagery of skills involving a perceptual target (reactive tasks) and without a perceptual target (nonreactive tasks). Participants included 484 individuals (280 male, 204 female), with a mean age of 20.39 (SD = 4.10) from the United Kingdom, Finland, and Australia. The group comprised 84 national, 21 0 state, 120 district, and 70 recreational level athletes representing 54 sports. Participants completed a demographic information sheet and the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ). Participants were classified according tocompetitive level and task type. Results indicated that overall participants used more motivational general-mastery imagery. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed that there were significant differences among the four competitive levels on imagery use with the district level participants reporting significantly higher use of motivational general-arousal (MG-A) imagery than state and national level participants and national level participants reporting higher use of cognitive specific (CS) imagery than recreational level participants. There was also a significant difference between tasks with a perceptual target and tasks with no target for motivational-specific imagery, with higher scores for tasks with a perceptual target. The results suggest the continued evaluation of imagery use in relation to competitive level and support that task type may influence the functional use of imagery in sport.

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a study was designed to determine if muscular innervation during imagery was specific to muscles needed for actual performance and if individuals of different skill levels utilizing two imagery perspectives demonstrated differing amounts of muscular activity.
Abstract: This study was designed to determine if muscular innervation during imagery was specific to muscles needed for actual performance and if individuals of different skill levels utilizing two imagery perspectives demonstrated differing amounts of muscular activity. A final purpose was to assess the effectiveness of the meditation-relaxation approach used in karate training to reduce tonic activity in muscles. Beginning and advanced (N = 36) karate students were randomly assigned to counterbalanced conditions of imagery perspective (internal/external) x skill level (beginning/advanced) x side (right/left) in a factorial design. EMG data were collected from both deltoid muscles before and after a relaxation session, during and between performances of imaginary arm lifts and between imagery perspectives. Following testing, a questionnaire involving the subject's perception of success at imagery was completed. The results of this investigation suggest that skill level does influence muscle innervation during ima...

146 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, three recommendations that are commonly made in the applied sport psychology literature are discussed: cognitive anxiety is always detrimental to performance and should therefore be reduced whenever possible; outcome goals and ego orientations have a detrimental effect on a number performance-related variables.
Abstract: Three recommendations that are commonly made in the applied sport psychology literature are discussed. These three recommendations are : 1) cognitive anxiety is always detrimental to performance and should therefore be reduced whenever possible; 2) outcome goals and ego orientations have a detrimental effect on a number performance-related variables. so that performers should be encouraged to set performance rather than outcome goals; 3) internal visual imagery is more beneficial to performance than external visual imagery. so performers should always be encouraged to use visual imagery from an internal perspective. For each of these recommendations. empirical and experiential evidence is presented which challenges the recommendation. Alternative refinements to the recommendations are discussed.

141 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined the relationship of internal and external imaginal rehearsal and imaginal style to skilled motor behavior and found that males significantly outperformed females, and imagery groups had more variability in improvement scores than the control group for women but not for men.
Abstract: This study examined the relationship of internal and external imaginal rehearsal and imaginal style to skilled motor behavior. Dart throwing was used as the dependent measure of physical performance. All subjects were randomly assigned to a control group, an internal mental rehearsal group, or an external mental rehearsal group. After assessing baseline performance, subjects were instructed to mentally rehearse before throwing sets of three darts. Control subjects were given a distracting task prior to throws. The results showed a slight, negative relation between spontaneous external imagery and physical performance. The mental rehearsal factor, however, was not significant. Males significantly outperformed females, and imagery groups had more variability in improvement scores than the control group for women but not for men. It was proposed that females' lower dart-throwing ability may have caused mental practice to be distracting for some subjects, and thus increased improvement variability in the ment...

133 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, this article found that self-confidence was the most important factor distinguishing the qualifier/non-qualifier competitive status of three Canadian World Wrestling teams. But Imagery and factors affecting performance were the only factors which did not contribute to group differences.
Abstract: Elite wrestlers (N = 39) were given a standardized questionnaire during final competition for positions on three Canadian World Wrestling teams. The questionnaire specifically focused upon psychological factors affecting both their training and competition. For data analysis, questionnaire items were combined into 17 factors. Both t-tests and simple discriminant function analyses for qualifier/nonqualifier competitive status revealed that self-confidence was the most important factor distinguishing the two groups. For the discriminant function analysis, Imagery and Factors Affecting Performance were the only factors which did not contribute to group differences. Explanations and implications of these results for sport psychology are discussed.

132 citations