Benefits of an external focus of attention: Common coding or conscious processing?
- 1 January 2006
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Journal of Sports Sciences
- Vol. 24 (1), 89-99
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02640410500130854
Abstract
We conducted two experiments to assess the effect attentional focus has on learning a complex motor skill and subsequent performance under secondary task loading. Participants in Experiment 1 learnt a golf putting task (300 practice trials) with a single instruction to either focus on their hands (internal focus) or the movement of the putter (external focus). No group differences were evident during learning or retention. Differences between the groups were only apparent under secondary task load; the external group's performance remained robust, while the internal group suffered a drop in performance. Verbal protocols demonstrated that the internal group accumulated significantly more internal knowledge and more task-relevant knowledge in general than the external group. Experiment 2 was designed to establish whether greater internal focus knowledge or greater explicit rule build up in general was responsible for performance breakdown. Two groups were presented with a set of six internal or external rules. Again, no performance differences were found during learning or retention. During the secondary task, both groups experienced performance deterioration. It was concluded that accumulation of explicit rules to guide performance was responsible for the internal group's breakdown in performance under secondary task loading and may be responsible for some of the performance differences reported previously.Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effects of focus of attention depend on golfers' skillJournal of Sports Sciences, 2003
- Practice with Sleep Makes Perfect: Sleep-Dependent Motor Skill LearningNeuron, 2002
- The implicit benefit of learning without errorsThe Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 2001
- Analogy learning: A means to implicit motor learningJournal of Sports Sciences, 2001
- From novice to no know-how: A longitudinal study of implicit motor learningJournal of Sports Sciences, 2000
- Enhancing motor learning through external-focus instructions and feedbackHuman Movement Science, 1999
- Perception and Action PlanningThe European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1997
- ‘Reinvestment’: A dimension of personality implicated in skill breakdown under pressurePersonality and Individual Differences, 1993
- Knowledge, knerves and know‐how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressureBritish Journal of Psychology, 1992
- A Common Coding Approach to Perception and ActionPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1990