1. Chapter 8
Imagery:
Inner Theater Becomes Reality
By Shane Murphy

2. Imagery Widely Used in Sport
90% of athletes reported using imagery in their sport.
94% of coaches reported using imagery in their sport.
20% used imagery every day.
40% used it 3 to 5 times a week.
(Jowdy et al., 1989)

3. Why Do Athletes Use Imagery?
80% to prepare for competition
48% to deal with errors in technique
44% to learn new skills
40% for relaxation
(Jowdy et al., 1989)

4. Is Imagery Effective?
97% of athletes said that imagery enhances performance.
100% of coaches said that imagery enhances performance.
(Jowdy et al., 1989)

5. Types of Imagery
A diver preparing to dive imagines a successful dive she has practiced countless times.
Closed
Rehearsal
Confidence
Focus
(continued)

6. Types of Imagery (cont)
A sailor imagines an upcoming race and strategizes responses to several situations.
Planning
Fluid or open
(continued)

7. Types of Imagery (cont)
A skater wakes up at 4:30 A.M. and imagines being in the Olympics one day.
Future possibility
Motivational

8. Basic Concepts
Imagery implies visual, a picture (e.g., visualization).
But imagery can involve all the senses, known as imagery modalities:
Visual
Auditory
Tactile
Olfactory
Taste
Kinesthetic
Vivid images may be related to using multiple modalities.

9. Imagery Perspective Described by Michael Mahoney in 1977.
Internal imagery involves imagining as if you are there.
External imagery is watching yourself perform.
Lew Hardy suggests that imagery perspective and modality are separate constructs.
Kinesthetic imagery, surprisingly, can be experienced in both internal and external modes.

10. Imagery Ability Vividness Controllability
Can athletes be taught to have more vivid, controllable imagery?

11. Imagery and Performance
Is imagery a mental process? It involves the brain, nervous system, and body. So it is physical as well.
A better description is that imagery is a cognitive process.
Where does this cognitive process take place?

12. Imagery and the Brain The image of starting a motor movement activates
premotor cortex as the action is prepared,
prefontal cortex as the action is initiated, and
cerebellum during control of ordered movement sequences.
Studied via brain imaging techniques such as PET (positron emission tomography) scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

13. Uses of Imagery in Training and Competition

14. Mental Rehearsal Distinction of mental and physical is outdated.
Cognitive science: Physical action is partly mental; mental actions are physical.
Functional equivalence: The same neural networks used in visual processing are used in visual imagery.
(continued)

15. Mental Rehearsal (cont)
Motor skills may be governed by specific neural networks in the brain: templates.

16. Imagery and Motivation
Effects of motivation.
Alan Paivio (1985): Imagery serves a motivational role as well as a cognitive one.
Imagery of far-off goals brings them closer.
Positive images may serve as secondary reinforcers of effort and persistence.

17. Imagery and Confidence
Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy: Vicarious experience is an important source of self-efficacy.
A variety of cognitive-behavioral therapies have been developed to change behavior through imagery, including systematic desensitization, flooding, coping imagery, implosion, and covert modeling.

18. Imagery and Attention
Mental practice may facilitate the development of an appropriate attentional set (Feltz & Landers, 1983).
Mental practice may help athletes focus on relevant aspects of performance and reduce attention to irrelevant or distracting cues.
Can imagery facilitate automaticity of skilled performance, perhaps by strengthening the motor template?

19. Emotional Effects of Imagery
In research, imagery reliably produces emotional changes.
Ambiguous effects on performance:
Increases in anger did not result in improvement of strength task.
Imagery reduced anxiety but did not improve performance.

20. Association Effects of Imagery
Imagery produces more associations than other cognitive processes.
Akhter Ahsen’s triple code model:
Image: sensory experience
Somatic: physiological responses
Meaning: personal
The unique meaning that each image holds for an individual makes imagery more difficult to study.

21. Imagery and Improved Performance
Learning new skills
Retaining skills over time
Preperformance rituals
Developing strategies and plans
Reducing competitive anxiety
Psyching up
Stress management
Enhancing confidence
Enhancing motivation
Improving concentration
Rehabbing from injury
Building teamwork

22. Improving Imagery Using all the senses Using emotions
Adding response propositions (versus stimulus propositions)
Peter Lang’s bioinformational theory: the emotional component

23. Imagery Assessment Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ)
Craig Hall and colleagues (1998)
27 items yielding 5 scales:
Motivation-specific imagery
Motivation-general (mastery) imagery
Motivation-general (arousal) imagery
Cognitive-specific imagery
Cognitive-general imagery
(continued)

24. Imagery Assessment (cont)
Multidimensional Mental Imagery Scale (MMIS)
Dianne Vella-Brodrick (1999)
21 items yielding three scales:
General factors
Sensory skills
Controllability
(continued)

25. Imagery Assessment (cont)
Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS)
Thomas et al. (1999)
Competition and practice subscales
Imagery is one of the 8 subscales in both
Imagery log (figure 8.1)

26. Potential Problems With Imagery
Research by Budney & Woolfolk (1990): 35% of athletes and 25% of coaches reported examples of using imagery that hurt performance.
Typical problems include
anxiety,
distractibility,
lack of imagery control, and
overconfidence.