Mental Imagery on Athletic Performance

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Mental Imagery on Athletic Performance

What is Mental Imagery?

Mental imagery, also called visualization and mental rehearsal, is defined as

experience that resembles perceptual experience, but which occurs in the absence of the

appropriate stimuli for the relevant perception

(plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/). Whenever we imagine ourselves performing an action in the absence of physical practice, we are said to be using imagery. While most discussions of imagery focus on the visual mode, there exists other modes of experience such as auditory and kinesthetic that are just as important. However, for the purposes of this paper, only visual imagery will be discussed for it is the most relevant mode concerning athletic performance.

Claims

Although sports psychology is becoming more prevalent in today’s society, there is a surprising lack of web sites that endorse and offer visual imagery skills for sports. The few advertisements that I found endorse tapes which claim to rapidly improve your athletic skill, concentration, and endurance. Visual imagery advocates purport that this technique increases energy and avoids injuries as well. Not only will visualization improve athletic performance but the ads also claim that it will enhance motivation and overall enjoyment of the sport (www.health-o-rama.org/superlearning/spec-s.htm). Peak Performance Sports looks to sell tapes that has the "latest methods in sports psychology", one of them being mental imagery, which will elevate your game to a new level. The tapes will increase confidence, focus and self-composure which will in turn, improve your athletic performance. These tapes can work for any type of athlete, whether they are profes...

... middle of paper ...

...xercise Psychology, 17(1), 54-69.

Murphy, S. (1990). Models of Imagery in Sport Psychology: A Review. Journal of

Mental Imagery, 14 (3&4), 153-172.

Orlick, T., Zitzelsberger, L., LI-Wei, Z., & Qi-wei, M. (1992). The Effect of

Mental-Imagery Training on Performance Enhancement With 7-10-Year-Old

Children. The Sports Psychologist, 6, 230-241.

Pavio, A. (1985). Cognitive and Motivational Functions of Imagery in Human

Performance. Journal of Applied Sports Science, 10, 22-28.

Porter, K., Foster, J. Visual Athletics. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Publishers, 1990.

Roure, R., et al. (1998). Autonomic Nervous System Responses Correlate with Mental

Rehearsal in Volleyball Training. Journal of Applied Physiology, 78(2), 99-108.

Suinn, R. Psychological Techniques for Individual Performance. New York, New York:

Macmillan, 1990. p 492-506.

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