Sport and Exercise Psychology: A Critical introduction ... - Routledge

USING IMAGINATION IN SPORT
Lack 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). Since about 2000, there has been an upsurge of interest in
“single-case” multiple-baseline research designs (for a comprehensive review of
these designs, see Barker et al., 2011). In this paradigm, all participants not only
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 theory of mental practice
(e.g., Jacobson, 1932), the cognitive or symbolic theory of mental practice
(e.g., Denis, 1985) and the bio-informational theory of imagery (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 causal mechanisms to a centrally stored representation
in the brain. The bio-informational theory postulates that MP effects reflect an
interaction of three different factors: the environment in which the movement in
question is performed (stimulus information), what is felt as the movement occurs
(response information) and the perceived importance of this skill to the performer
(meaning information). Let us now outline and evaluate each of these theories briefly
(but for a more detailed review see Murphy and Martin, 2002) before proposing a
possible compromise between these rival models of mental practice.
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