Chapter 8 Imagery: Inner Theater Becomes Reality By Shane Murphy

1. Chapter 8 Imagery: Inner Theater Becomes Reality By Shane Murphy

2. Imagery Widely Used in Sport • 90% of athletes reported using imagery in their sport. • 94% of coaches reported using imagery in their sport. • 20% used imagery every day. • 40% used it 3 to 5 times a week. (Jowdy et al., 1989)

3. Why Do Athletes Use Imagery? • 80% to prepare for competition • 48% to deal with errors in technique • 44% to learn new skills • 40% for relaxation (Jowdy et al., 1989)

4. Is Imagery Effective? • 97% of athletes said that imagery enhances performance. • 100% of coaches said that imagery enhances performance. (Jowdy et al., 1989)

5. Types of Imagery • A diver preparing to dive imagines a successful dive she has practiced countless times. • Closed • Rehearsal • Confidence • Focus (continued)

6. Types of Imagery (cont) • A sailor imagines an upcoming race and strategizes responses to several situations. • Planning • Fluid or open (continued)

7. Types of Imagery (cont) • A skater wakes up at 4:30 A.M. and imagines being in the Olympics one day. • Future possibility • Motivational

8. Imagery implies visual, a picture (e.g., visualization). But imagery can involve all the senses, known as imagery modalities: Visual Auditory Tactile Olfactory Taste Kinesthetic Vivid images may be related to using multiple modalities. Basic Concepts

9. Imagery Perspective • Described by Michael Mahoney in 1977. • Internal imagery involves imagining as if you are there. • External imagery is watching yourself perform. • Lew Hardy suggests that imagery perspective and modality are separate constructs. • Kinesthetic imagery, surprisingly, can be experienced in both internal and external modes.

10. Imagery Ability • Vividness • Controllability • Can athletes be taught to have more vivid, controllable imagery?

11. Imagery and Performance • Is imagery a mental process? It involves the brain, nervous system, and body. So it is physical as well. • A better description is that imagery is a cognitive process. • Where does this cognitive process take place?

12. Imagery and the Brain • The image of starting a motor movement activates • premotor cortex as the action is prepared, • prefontal cortex as the action is initiated, and • cerebellum during control of ordered movement sequences. • Studied via brain imaging techniques such as PET (positron emission tomography) scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

13. Uses of Imagery in Training and Competition

14. Mental Rehearsal • Distinction of mental and physical is outdated. • Cognitive science: Physical action is partly mental; mental actions are physical. • Functional equivalence: The same neural networks used in visual processing are used in visual imagery. (continued)

15. Mental Rehearsal (cont) • Motor skills may be governed by specific neural networks in the brain: templates.

16. Imagery and Motivation • Effects of motivation. • Alan Paivio (1985): Imagery serves a motivational role as well as a cognitive one. • Imagery of far-off goals brings them closer. • Positive images may serve as secondary reinforcers of effort and persistence.

17. Imagery and Confidence • Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy: Vicarious experience is an important source of self-efficacy. • A variety of cognitive-behavioral therapies have been developed to change behavior through imagery, including systematic desensitization, flooding, coping imagery, implosion, and covert modeling.

18. Imagery and Attention • Mental practice may facilitate the development of an appropriate attentional set (Feltz & Landers, 1983). • Mental practice may help athletes focus on relevant aspects of performance and reduce attention to irrelevant or distracting cues. • Can imagery facilitate automaticity of skilled performance, perhaps by strengthening the motor template?

19. Emotional Effects of Imagery • In research, imagery reliably produces emotional changes. • Ambiguous effects on performance: • Increases in anger did not result in improvement of strength task. • Imagery reduced anxiety but did not improve performance.

20. Association Effects of Imagery • Imagery produces more associations than other cognitive processes. • Akhter Ahsen’s triple code model: • Image: sensory experience • Somatic: physiological responses • Meaning: personal • The unique meaning that each image holds for an individual makes imagery more difficult to study.

21. Imagery and Improved Performance • Learning new skills • Retaining skills over time • Preperformance rituals • Developing strategies and plans • Reducing competitive anxiety • Psyching up • Stress management • Enhancing confidence • Enhancing motivation • Improving concentration • Rehabbing from injury • Building teamwork

22. Improving Imagery • Using all the senses • Using emotions • Adding response propositions(versus stimulus propositions) • Peter Lang’s bioinformationaltheory: the emotional component

23. Imagery Assessment • Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ) • Craig Hall and colleagues (1998) • 27 items yielding 5 scales: • Motivation-specific imagery • Motivation-general (mastery) imagery • Motivation-general (arousal) imagery • Cognitive-specific imagery • Cognitive-general imagery (continued)

24. Imagery Assessment (cont) • Multidimensional Mental Imagery Scale (MMIS) • Dianne Vella-Brodrick (1999) • 21 items yielding three scales: • General factors • Sensory skills • Controllability (continued)

25. Imagery Assessment (cont) • Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) • Thomas et al. (1999) • Competition and practice subscales • Imagery is one of the 8 subscales in both • Imagery log (figure 8.1)

26. Potential Problems With Imagery • Research by Budney & Woolfolk (1990): 35% of athletes and 25% of coaches reported examples of using imagery that hurt performance. • Typical problems include • anxiety, • distractibility, • lack of imagery control, and • overconfidence.