Is What You See Really What You Get? Athletes’ Perceptions of Imagery’s Functions

Abstract

Imagery in sport has been studied extensively (for a review see Martin, Moritz, & Hall, 1999). Researchers have described the what, why, where, when, and how athletes use imagery (e.g., Martin et al., 1999; Munroe, Giacobbi, Hall, & Weinberg, 2000). Most of the current research in this area has supported Paivio's (1985) conceptualization of imagery into cognitive and motivational functions that operate on specific and general levels. These functions are Cognitive Specific (CS: imaging skills), Cognitive General (CG: imaging strategies), Motivation Specific (MS: imaging goal oriented responses and activities), and Motivational General (MG: affect and arousal). Based on this framework, the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ; Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998) was developed to assess the frequency with which athletes use these imagery functions. In contrast to Paivio's original model, the SIQ contains 5 subscales as a result of the splitting of the MG function into MG-Mastery (MG-M: imaging being confident, for example) and MG-Arousal (MG-A: imaging physiological and emotional arousal). Researchers have suggested that for imagery to be an effective performance enhancing technique, the imagery content must match the function (cf. Denis, 1985). Martin et al. (1999) also highlighted the importance of using different types of images to achieve different outcomes. In short, the premise behind imagery use

Evaluation of the Use of Healing Imagery in Athletic Injury Rehabilitation

“…Evans et al (2006) recommend that the AIIQ-2 should be improved through including participants' perceptions of what the purpose of the imagery is so that it can be correctly categorized to the right subtype of imagery. This recommendation is consistent with that of Short, Monsma, and Short (2004) who state that the intended goal of the imagery should be recorded. Regardless of these factors, the AIIQ-2 still stands as the best quantitative questionnaire to assess athletes' frequency of imagery use prior to and during injury rehabilitation.…”

“…It is also possible that the reading of the cue from the AIIQ-2 could have sparked the athletes in the control group to retrospectively link thoughts of healing they may have had at some point in their recovery and cause them to portray that they used that function of imagery more frequently than they actually did. The suggestion by Short et al (2004) for the AIIQ-2 to include athletes' perceptions of the purpose of their images could aid in combating this issue.…”

The Imagination in Sport Questionnaire – reliability and validity characteristics

“…Research has demonstrated that images can serve multiple functions for athletes (Nordin & Cumming, 2008;Short, Monsma & Short, 2004). Two judokas use a variety of sensory modalities visualizing the execution of techniques.…”

Alleviation of Choking Under Pressure in Elite Golf: An Action Research Study

“…I also clarified that in time, the image could encourage an external focus before shot execution (i.e., a focus on the effect in the environment that is produced as the result of body movement), which should encourage optimal performance under pressure (Wulf & Jiang, 2007;PerkinsCeccato, Passmore, & Lee, 2003). I asked both Adam and Chris to persist with the imagery and offered them various scripts based on contemporary literature (e.g., Short, Monsma, & Short, 2004) that were designed to improve their imagery ability.…”