Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

image and reading text on a page draw upon the same neural pathways. Another example
of this “like-modality” interference problem occurs if you try to imagine your favourite
song to your “mind’s ear” while listening to music on the radio. Just as before, auditory
perception and auditory imagery interfere with each other because both tasks compete for
the same processing pathways on the brain. An interesting practical implication of this
interference phenomenon is that you should not listen to football matches while driving
your car because both tasks require visual processing. This time, unfortunately, cognitive
interference could result in a nasty accident (see Figure 5.2)! Similar interference could
occur if you try to visualise an action while driving. Are you listening, David James?

Lock of field research problem in MP research

Earlier in this chapter, I indicated that most research on mental practice has been carried
out in laboratories rather than in real-life settings. Unfortunately, this trend has led to a
situation in which few studies on MP have used “subjects who learned actual sport skills,
under the same conditions and time periods in which sport activities are typically taught”
(Isaac, 1992, p. 192). This neglect of field research is probably attributable to the fact that
studies of this type are very time-consuming to conduct—which is a major drawback for
elite athletes whose training and travel schedules are usually very busy. In addition,
laboratory studies offer a combination of convenience and experimental control which is
not easily rivalled in research methodology (see Chapter 1 for a brief summary of
research methods in sport and exercise psychology). Interestingly, recent years have seen
an upsurge of interest in “single-case” multiple-baseline research designs. In this
paradigm, all participants receive the treatment but also act as their own controls because
they are required to spend some time earlier in a baseline condition. A major advantage
of these research designs is that they cater for individual differences because the
intervention in question is administered at different times for each of the different
participants in the study. As yet, however, only a handful of imagery studies in sport
(e.g., Casby and Moran, 1998) have used single-case research designs.
Despite the conceptual and methodological criticisms discussed above, few
researchers deny that MP is effective in improving certain sport skills in certain
situations. So, what theoretical mechanisms could account for this MP effect?

Theories of mental practice: overview

Although many theories have been proposed since the 1930s to explain MP effects (see
review by Moran, 1996), the precise psychological mechanisms underlying symbolic
rehearsal remain unclear. One reason for this equivocal state of affairs is that most MP
studies are “one-shot” variations of a standard experimental paradigm (described in the
previous section) rather than explicit hypothesis-testing investigations. In spite of this
problem, three main conceptual approaches have been postulated to explain MP effects:
the “neuromuscular” model (e.g., Jacobson, 1932), the cognitive or symbolic account
(e.g., Denis, 1985) and the “bio-informational” theory (e.g., Lang, 1979). As we shall see,
the neuromuscular perspective proposes that mental practice effects are mediated mainly
by faint activity in the peripheral musculature whereas the cognitive model attributes

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