Preference for imagery perspective, imagery perspective training and task performance

Three groupswere used, an internal training group, extemal training group, and control group. Participants in the intemal and extemal training groups trained in\ud imagery perspective use across two 30-minute general sessions and two 30-minute specific sessions on each of the skills. Participants completed RS manipulation checks after the general and specific training sessions to examine the effects of perspective training. Participants in all three groups completed the imagery and performance pre-tests and the performance post-tests, as well as the manipulation checks, but the control group did not undertake any imagery training. Results indicated strong correlations between the lUQ items and the RS. Before imagery perspective training, participants experienced both skills more from an intemal than an extemal perspective; however, there was a substantial extemal component, as for Studies 1 and 2. In addition, participants reported significantly greater use of extemal\ud imagery in imaging the open skill than the closed skill. Following training there was a change in perspective use by the two training groups, resulting in participants using\ud their mis-matched perspective more than they did before training. There was no difference between the perspective training groups on performance gains; however, both training groups improved performance on the darts and table tennis skills significantly more than the control group. In addition, an analysis of actual reported use of imagery perspective, irrespective of training group, revealed that internals improved performance significantly more on the darts skill than extemals, whereas for the table tennis task extemals improved performance significantly more than\ud internals. The findings of the three studies are discussed in terms of theoretical, measurement, and practical implications