Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

Decety and Ingvar (1990) who discovered that certain brain structures (e.g., the prefrontal
areas, supplementary motor areas and cerebellum) show a pattern of neural activity
during imagery that resembles the activity elicited by actual motor performance (see also
Holmes and Collins, 2002). Taken together, these propositions suggest that mental
practice (MP) is best understood, at present, as a centrally mediated cognitive activity
that mimics perceptual, motor and certain emotional experiences in the brain. This view
integrates the strengths of all three theories of mental practice—the neuromuscular
account (because MP has neural substrates even though these are regulated neither
centrally nor peripherally), the cognitive model (because MP is believed to be mediated
by a central mental representation) and the bio-informational approach (because MP
elicits emotional reactions as well as cognitive and neural activity).

Conclusions about research on mental practice in athletes

In summary, research on MP has shown that the systematic covert rehearsal of motor
movements and sport skills has a small but significant positive effect on their actual
performance. But this conclusion must be tempered by at least three cautionary notes.
First, as Box 5.4 shows, mental practice effects are influenced by a number of
intervening variables.

Box 5.4 Thinking critically about...the effects of mental practice on

sport performance

Despite an abundance of research on mental practice over the past fifty years, relatively
few studies have been conducted on visualisation in athletes! Therefore, any conclusions
about the effects of MP on sporting performance must be regarded as tentative because
they reflect extrapolations from a body of research literature that has a rather different
focus. In addition, traditional studies of visualisation have adopted a “between groups”
experimental design rather than field experiments or single case studies. Also, for reasons
of convenience and control, the criterion tasks employed by most MP researchers have
tended to be laboratory tasks (e.g., dart-throwing) rather than complex sport skills (e.g.,
the golf drive). Finally, a host of intervening variables affect the relationship between MP
and performance. These factors include such key variables as the nature of the task or
skill to be performed, the content of the imagery instructions provided, the duration of the
imagery intervention employed, the extent of the performer’s previous experience with
the task, his/her imagery abilities, the level of expertise of the performer, the type of
imagery perspective adopted (ie., internal or external), the imagery outcome (i.e., success
or failure) visualised and whether or not a relaxation treatment was provided before the
mental practice intervention was applied.

In addition, research on imagery processes in athletes is hampered by inadequate
theoretical explanation of the psychological mechanisms underlying MP effects. In this
regard, however, the weight of evidence at present tends to favour the functional
equivalence model of mental rehearsal. The third cautionary note arises from the
possibility that MP research may constrain our understanding of imagery use in athletes.

Using imagination in sport: mental imagery and mental practice in athletes 141