imagery processes concurrently in the same sensory modality. This interference should
manifest itself in errors and longer response times when athletes face this dual-task
situation. Interestingly, as Figure 5.2 shows, interference can also occur between mental
imagery and perception in other situations in everyday life such as driving a car while
listening to the radio.
Why is it so difficult to use perception and imagination in the same sensory modality?
See Box 5.3.
The idea of using cognitive interference to validate imagery reports has certain
obvious limitations, however. For example, apart from being modality-specific, it is
rather unwieldy if not impractical as it depends on finding a suitable pair of perceptual
and imagery tasks. Let us now turn to the second problem afflicting MP research. Why
have there been so few imagery studies conducted on elite athletes who have to learn and
perform sport skills in field settings?
Figure 5.2 It is dangerous to listen to a
football match while driving a car
Box 5.3 Why you should not listen to football commentaries while
driving: interference between imagery and actionIt has long been known that people have great difficulty in perceiving and imagining
information presented in the same sensory modality, For example, try to form a mental
image of your friend’s face while reading this page. If you are like most people, you
should find this task rather difficult becausethe cognitive activities of forming a visual
Using imagination in sport: mental imagery and mental practice in athletes 135