Time-referenced effects of an internal vs. external focus of attention on muscular activity and compensatory variability.

Autor/inn/en	Hossner, Ernst-Joachim; Ehrlenspiel, Felix
Titel	Time-referenced effects of an internal vs. external focus of attention on muscular activity and compensatory variability. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Zeitbezogene Auswirkungen eines internen gegenüber eines externen Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit auf die Muskelaktivität und die ausgleichende Variabilität.
Quelle	In: Frontiers in psychology, 1 (2010) Art. 230, 16 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1664-1078
DOI	10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00230
Schlagwörter	Aufmerksamkeit; Beeinflussung; Motorik; Psychomotorik; Selektive Aufmerksamkeit; Muskelaktivität; Variabilität; Kinematik; Sportmotorik; Sportpsychologie; Neuropsychologie; Leistung
Abstract	The paralysis-by-analysis phenomenon, i.e., attending to the execution of one's movement impairs performance, has gathered a lot of attention over recent years (see Wulf, 2007, for a review). Explanations of this phenomenon, e.g., the hypotheses of constrained action (Wulf et al., 2001) or of step-by-step execution (Masters, 1992; Beilock et al., 2002), however, do not refer to the level of underlying mechanisms on the level of sensorimotor control. For this purpose, a "nodal-point hypothesis" is presented here with the core assumption that skilled motor behavior is internally based on sensorimotor chains of nodal points, that attending to intermediate nodal points leads to a muscular re-freezing of the motor system at exactly and exclusively these points in time, and that this re-freezing is accompanied by the disruption of compensatory processes, resulting in an overall decrease of motor performance. Two experiments, on lever sequencing and basketball free throws, respectively, are reported that successfully tested these time-referenced predictions, i.e., showing that muscular activity is selectively increased and compensatory variability selectively decreased at movement-related nodal points if these points are in the focus of attention. Verf.-Referat.
Erfasst von	Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft, Bonn
Update	2015/1