Imagery effects on the performance of skilled and novice soccer players

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an imagery training programme on the performance of a soccer task by skilled and novice players. An initial assessment of performance on the soccer task was undertaken, and then 22 skilled and 22 novice players were equally and randomly assigned to either a control or an experimental group. The experimental group was given an imagery training programme consisting of both visual and kinaesthetic imagery, and in which both internal and external imagery perspectives were included. The programme lasted 6 weeks, with the subjects attending bi-weekly sessions of approximately 15 min each. The control group developed a competitive strategy that was totally unrelated to the performance task. Similar to the experimental group, the controls did this over a 6-week period, attending bi-weekly sessions of 15 min duration. Two performance measures were recorded--response time (i.e. the time to complete the soccer task) and performance accuracy (i.e. errors in performing the soccer task recorded in the form of time penalties). Performance on the post-test as measured by response time revealed a significant improvement for both the skilled and novice players in the imagery group. The control group failed to show any such improvement. No effects were found for performance accuracy.

Site‐specific effects of mental practice combined with transcranial direct current stimulation on motor learning

“…In contrast to previous studies, where motor imagery alone sufficed to induce motor improvement (Blair et al ., ; Roure et al ., ; Gentili et al ., , ), in our study, although there was a slight trend for a reduction of writing time after MP (sham tDCS group), the motor imagery alone did not significantly alter motor learning. One reason for this discrepancy might be that one session of MP would not be able to induce motor skill improvement.…”

Executive functions in motor imagery: support for the motor-cognitive model over the functional equivalence model

“…Motor imagery represents a valuable tool in skill training (Blair et al 1993;Denis 1985), and in rehabilitation following central or peripheral injury (Grabherr et al 2015;Harris and Hebert 2015). Empirical investigations of motor imagery contribute greatly to understanding the internal mental representation underlying action production Moran et al 2012;Rodriguez et al 2008;Vogt et al 2013).…”

The Effect of an Ecological Imagery Program on Soccer Performance of Elite Players

“…However, there is no reliable evidence on how imagery could work in complex changeable team sports like soccer, specifically in real game competitions. It is also well documented that findings through multiple baseline studies with no classical control group could not produce strong conclusions [19, 20] . We therefore aimed to investigate the main hypothesis through the real world competitions.…”