Neuroscience
You've probably heard that imagining yourself performing a skilled action can actually help you pull off the move in real life. New research builds on this idea, by showing that - at least when it comes to golf putting - how fast you should imagine yourself performing the action depends on your level of expertise. Novices should imagine themselves putting slowly, while pros should imagine themselves putting fast.
Sian Beilock and Sara Gonso tested the putting accuracy of 15 novice student golfers and 13 students with at least ten years golfing experience (the latter all had a handicap of 8 or less).
The students completed their putts after one of two imagery tasks: either ten imaginary putts performed as fast and as accurately as possible, or ten imagined putts performed as accurately as possible, taking as long as they wanted.
The skilled golfers performed their real life putts with more accuracy after the fast imagery task compared with after the slow imagery task. The opposite was true for the novices, who putted more accurately after imagining slow putts.
This chimes with research on the effects of speed on real life actions. Experienced athletes can benefit from executing moves quickly because it stops them from thinking too much about actions which have become automatic and "procedural". Novices, by contrast, typically benefit from taking their time and thinking about actions which are not yet familiar. _________________________________
Beilock, S., Gonso, S. (2008). Putting in the mind versus putting on the green: Expertise, performance time, and the linking of imagery and action. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61(6), 920-932. DOI: 10.1080/17470210701625626
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Speed matters when it comes to imagining the perfect putt
You've probably heard that imagining yourself performing a skilled action can actually help you pull off the move in real life. New research builds on this idea, by showing that - at least when it comes to golf putting - how fast you should imagine yourself performing the action depends on your level of expertise. Novices should imagine themselves putting slowly, while pros should imagine themselves putting fast.Sian Beilock and Sara Gonso tested the putting accuracy of 15 novice student golfers and 13 students with at least ten years golfing experience (the latter all had a handicap of 8 or less).
The students completed their putts after one of two imagery tasks: either ten imaginary putts performed as fast and as accurately as possible, or ten imagined putts performed as accurately as possible, taking as long as they wanted.
The skilled golfers performed their real life putts with more accuracy after the fast imagery task compared with after the slow imagery task. The opposite was true for the novices, who putted more accurately after imagining slow putts.
This chimes with research on the effects of speed on real life actions. Experienced athletes can benefit from executing moves quickly because it stops them from thinking too much about actions which have become automatic and "procedural". Novices, by contrast, typically benefit from taking their time and thinking about actions which are not yet familiar. _________________________________
Beilock, S., Gonso, S. (2008). Putting in the mind versus putting on the green: Expertise, performance time, and the linking of imagery and action. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61(6), 920-932. DOI: 10.1080/17470210701625626
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- How The Fluency Of Your Own Actions Affects Your Judgment Of Others
Last year the psychologists Steven Tipper and Patric Bach asked students to perform an identification task with a difference. Two men were shown either kicking a ball or typing at a keyboard. Crucially, the students had to signal their recognition of...
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Toddlers as young as 19 months are able to distinguish jokes from mistakes - a skill that lays the groundwork for their later ability to recognise lies and false beliefs. That's according to Elena Hoicka and Merideth Gattis, who tested a large group...
- One-year-old Babies Predict Other People’s Intentions
Babies as young as 12 months already have a rudimentary understanding of other people’s intentions. That’s according to Terje Falck-Ytter and colleagues who observed babies’ eye movements as they watched a video presentation of a person picking...
- Imagining World War Ii
People apparently find it harder to imagine battle scenes from World War II than from the Middle Ages, probably because of their exposure to authentic footage of the Second World War, which is often poor quality. And the less able someone is to imagine...
- Can’t Form A Mental Image? No Big Deal.
UPDATE (23/6/15) - Carl Zimmer followed up his Discover piece with an NYT article about a recent paper in Cortex naming this non-imaging 'aphantasia'. The lead researcher is Dr Adam Zeman and he's interested to hear from people who...