An internal focus of attention is optimal when congruent with afferent proprioceptive task information

Abstract

Whilst benefits of an external focus are shown to govern several characteristics of skill execution, specificity theory indicates that sources of afferent information most useful to performance execution are typically prioritised during processing.Objectives: We investigated whether an internal focus facilitates performance when pertinent afferent information is proprioceptive in nature and congruent with attentional focus. We also considered whether the mechanisms behind attentional focus differences are attributable to planning processes or online motor control.Design: Experiments 1 and 2 adopted a randomised design, whilst experiment 3 used a repeated measures approach.Method: In Experiment 1 we investigated movement variability as a measure of planning and error correction under external and internal focus conditions in an aiming task. Experiment 2 removed visual information to increase pertinence of proprioceptive feedback for movement execution and Experiment 3 adopted a leg-extension task, where proprioceptive salience was enhanced using an ankle weight. We hypothesized that this would increase congruency between internal focus instructions and movement production.Results: Experiments 1 and 2 revealed reduced amplitude errors under an internal focus whilst Experiment 3 showed similar findings with the addition of lower EMG activity when adopting an internal focus. Movement variability findings were indicative of enhanced planning.Conclusions: When pertinence of proprioceptive information was amplified, benefits of an internal focus were more pronounced and performance was higher. Participants were better able to focus on movement characteristics to process proprioceptive feedback: something not afforded under an external focus. This raises doubts regarding the rigidity of the constrained action hypothesis.

Optimization in Manual Aiming: Relating Inherent Variability and Target Size, and Its Influence on Tendency

“…The movements had to reach as close as possible to the target cross-hair within 400-500 ms, and was thus a temporally-constrained task. This constraint was deemed a reasonable time-window in order to appropriately traverse the amplitude and utilise sensory feedback for late online control when it came to the accuracy-constrained component of the study (see Session 2 Protocol) (e.g., Elliott et al, 2014;Gottwald et al, 2020;Heath et al, 2011;Khan et al, 2003;Mendoza et al, 2006).…”

Attentional Focus Instructions Do Not Affect Choice Reaction Time

“…In addition, Ille et al (2013) reported faster sprint start RTs under external focus conditions compared with internal focus conditions in both novices and experts. In contrast, Gottwald et al (2019 ; Exp. 1) reported that, compared to external focus of attention, using internal focus of attention led to more accurate movements in a computer-based aiming movement task.…”

Every story has two sides: evaluating information processing and ecological dynamics perspectives of focus of attention in skill acquisition

“…The second stage of the process centres around “awareness” with the authors arguing that the skill must be “de-automised” prior to technical corrections being made. More recently, Gottwald et al ( 43 ) suggest that an internal focus (or somaesthetic awareness) may also have value when congruent with afferent information more useful for task success e.g., proprioceptive tasks such as artistic gymnastics. This was tested over a series of three studies using upper and lower limb extension tasks, where pertinence of proprioceptive information was enhanced by removing vision or adding weighted objects to limbs involved in movement production.…”