The effects of attentional focusing strategies on novice dart throwing performance and Their task experiences

Marchant, David; Clough, Peter; Crawshaw, Martin

doi:10.1080/1612197x.2007.9671837

Cited by 111 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The athletes benefited from external attention focus (regardless of attention focus distance) and the lack of attention focus instructions did not weaken performance of athletes; this is consistent with findings of many studies [12,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The restricted action hypothesis (Wulf et al) attributes the supremacy of external focus of attention to diverting attention from motion and shifting it toward motion effects.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Optimal distance of an external focus of attention in standing long jump performance of athletes

Lotfi

2018

Phys. educ. stud.

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Authors' Contribution: A -Study design; B -Data collection; C -Statistical analysis; D -Manuscript Preparation; E -Funds Collection. Abstract Purpose:Recently, studies have shown that an external focus of attention improves the performance of individuals. Some studies have also confirmed the superiority of distances away from body for external focus of attention. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal distance of an external focus of attention when performing athletes' standing long jump. Material:51 volunteer students (M age= 23.31 ± 5.26 years) were selected as sample. At first all they performed a standing long jump in control status (without instruction for focus of attention). Then in an interpersonal counterbalanced design, a pair of jumps was performed with four different distances of an external focus of attention. These distances included 0.5, 2.5, 4 and 8 meters from the jump start line marked with colored tapes on the ground. Results:The results showed that having an external focus of attention compare to the control conditions has a significant advantage in the performance of the athlete's standing long jump. Also, the performance of athletes at different distances of an external focus of attention was compared. Results showed that the four-meter distance was significantly better performance than the half-meter distance of an external focus of attention. Conclusions:Four-meter distance can be introduced as the optimal distance of an external focus of attention in the performance of athletes' standing long jump.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Optimal distance of an external focus of attention in standing long jump performance of athletes

Lotfi

2018

Phys. educ. stud.

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“…Previous research has indicated that the use of instructions is less than 100% (Marchant, Clough, & Crawshaw, 2007; F o r P e e r R e v i e w O n l y a measure of social desirability bias (SDB). Although no data was excluded in the present study, the use of multiple self-report measures and the SDB questionnaire gave increased confidence that the participants were focusing as directed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A distal focus of attention leads to superior performance on a golf putting task

Kearney

2014

International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology

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A distal focus of attention leads to superior performance on a golf putting taskThe purpose of this experiment was to determine the optimal focus of attention for novice golfers performing a putting task. Previous research has advocated that novices should adopt a proximal external focus for novices, but this advice has been drawn from research on a relatively complex task (i.e., pitch shot).Research examining golf putting specifically has failed to find an advantage of adopting either a proximal or an internal focus, but experiments has have not included a distal focus condition. The present research investigated if adopting a distal external focus of attention would lead to superior putting performance in novices. Following familiarization with the task, general putting technique, and the concept of attentional focus, 18 participants completed three sets of 15 putts in a counter-balanced, within participant design, adopting a different focus of attention for each set (internal, proximal external, distal external). After every five putts, participants were asked to answer three questions concerning how much they focused on internal, proximal or distal cues. On the completion of the trials, participants were asked to identify if they had a preference for one or other focus. The self-reports indicated that participants adhered to the three instructional conditions. Performance in the distal focus condition was significantly better than performance in the proximal or internal conditions, which did not differ. Significantly more participants preferred a distal focus of attention than would be expected by chance. Task complexity appears to be an important variable in the selection of the optimal external focus of attention for novices.

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“…Accuracy in hitting golf balls has been demonstrated to be enhanced when performers were asked to focus externally on the club motion or intended ball trajectory (Bell & Hardy, 2009;Wulf & Su, 2007) rather than on their arms (Wulf & Su) or wrists (Bell & Hardy). Accuracy in throwing balls (Al-Abood, Bennett, Hernandez, Ashford, & Davids, 2002;Chiviacowsky, Wulf, & Ávila, 2013;Zachry et al, 2005), darts (Lohse, Sherwood, & Healy, 2010;Marchant, Clough, & Crawshaw, 2007), or Frisbees (Ong, Bowcock, & Hodges, 2010) also has been found to be improved with an external focus.…”

Section: Accuracymentioning

confidence: 98%

Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning

2016

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Effective motor performance is important for surviving and thriving, and skilled movement is critical in many activities. Much theorizing over the past few decades has focused on how certain practice conditions affect the processing of task-related information to affect learning. Yet, existing theoretical perspectives do not accommodate significant recent lines of evidence demonstrating motivational and attentional effects on performance and learning. These include research on (a) conditions that enhance expectancies for future performance, (b) variables that influence learners' autonomy, and (c) an external focus of attention on the intended movement effect. We propose the OPTIMAL (Optimizing Performance through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning) theory of motor learning. We suggest that motivational and attentional factors contribute to performance and learning by strengthening the coupling of goals to actions. We provide explanations for the performance and learning advantages of these variables on psychological and neuroscientific grounds. We describe a plausible mechanism for expectancy effects rooted in responses of dopamine to the anticipation of positive experience and temporally associated with skill practice. Learner autonomy acts perhaps largely through an enhanced expectancy pathway. Furthermore, we consider the influence of an external focus for the establishment of efficient functional connections across brain networks that subserve skilled movement. We speculate that enhanced expectancies and an external focus propel performers' cognitive and motor systems in productive "forward" directions and prevent "backsliding" into self-and non-task focused states. Expected success presumably breeds further success and helps consolidate memories. We discuss practical implications and future research directions.Keywords Motivation . Attentional focus . Self-efficacy . Positive affect . Dopamine . Motor performance Skilled movement is fundamental to surviving and thriving in the world and the basis as well for many of the highest human endeavors and cultural achievements, from sport to art to music. How people learn and relearn movement skills has been addressed from a number of disparate scientific perspectives and levels of analysis, including behavioral, social cognitive, neurophysiological, and neurocomputational. In part, differences in assumptions, scientific terminology and philosophy, as well as methodological approaches have made scholarly rapprochement challenging, but we see the end goal of optimizing motor learning as important. We suggest that it may be valuable to bring recent insights from various approaches together to identify a coherent way forward that can result in optimized learning from humans' earliest encounters with new motor skills to the lifelong development of motoric expertise.It is typically considered time to look afresh at dominant theories in a field when the accumulating evidence suggests that old frameworks cannot account for substantial new insights an...

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The effects of attentional focusing strategies on novice dart throwing performance and Their task experiences

Cited by 111 publications

References 17 publications

Optimal distance of an external focus of attention in standing long jump performance of athletes

Optimal distance of an external focus of attention in standing long jump performance of athletes

A distal focus of attention leads to superior performance on a golf putting task

Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning

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