Imagery effects on the performance of skilled and novice soccer players

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an imagery training programme on the performance of a soccer task by skilled and novice players. An initial assessment of performance on the soccer task was undertaken, and then 22 skilled and 22 novice players were equally and randomly assigned to either a control or an experimental group. The experimental group was given an imagery training programme consisting of both visual and kinaesthetic imagery, and in which both internal and external imagery perspectives were included. The programme lasted 6 weeks, with the subjects attending bi-weekly sessions of approximately 15 min each. The control group developed a competitive strategy that was totally unrelated to the performance task. Similar to the experimental group, the controls did this over a 6-week period, attending bi-weekly sessions of 15 min duration. Two performance measures were recorded--response time (i.e. the time to complete the soccer task) and performance accuracy (i.e. errors in performing the soccer task recorded in the form of time penalties). Performance on the post-test as measured by response time revealed a significant improvement for both the skilled and novice players in the imagery group. The control group failed to show any such improvement. No effects were found for performance accuracy.