Researches On Focus Of Attention Affects Novice Dart Throwing Learning And Performance

Plenty of studies have shown that compared to the internal focus (focusing on movement), the external focus (focusing on the effect of the movement) will be more benefit to motor skill learning and performance. On this basis, some researchers have put forward the Constrain Actions Hypothesis to explain this phenomenon, which believes focusing on the movement consciously will harmful to automatic motor control process and this will affect the performance. There has been some studies using performance and some physiological indexes support this hypothesis, while there are few studies to test this hypothesis in mechanism of central nervous system.By two separate experiments, this study compared the effect of different focus of attention on the subjects when they completed darts throwing acquired. Experiment 1 used 39 novices to study the motor skill acquisition and performance under different focus of attention. Experiment 2 used 39 novices, with the help of Event-Related Potentials technology from the perspective of motor planning, to compare the novices’ motor skills under different focus of attention, which involved external performance and internal neural electrophysiological activity. This experiment want to test Constrain Actions Hypothesis from the central mechanism.Results shown that the performance of both experiment in practice stage accuracy, appeared the phenomenon of "external focus advantage" -- the accuracy of the external focus group is greater than the internal focus group. While on the retention test, only the results of the experiment one shown external focus group was significantly greater than internal focus group. In terms of the stability results, regardless of experiments for one or two, there is no significant difference between groups on practice stage and retention test. The neural electrophysiology results shown that the amplitude of late Contingent Negative Variation (CNV), which is related motor planning and preparing, was no significant difference both on the axis of each electrode, or in the movement related areas between two different focus of attention.We could draw the following conclusions through this research:(1) Under the condition of this experiment, with the help of a dart throwing task, we found that compared to using internal focus, external focus was more benefits to the novice participants;(2) Under the condition of this experiment, through the CNV we had not been able to support the "Constrain Actions hypothesis" in central nervous mechanism. As to the explanation of the phenomenon of external focus advantages, we tended to "neuromuscular efficiency" from peripheral nervous changes;(3) We recommended using external focus to guide beginners when practice darts. In addition we also suggested that future research try to use other movement-related potentials or other brain imaging technology to test the Constrain Actions hypothesis on the central nervous mechanism for further inspection.