Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Human Movement Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/humov

Influence of attentional focus on skilled motorperformance: Performance decrement underunfamiliar focus conditions

0167-9457/$ - see front matter � 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

⇑ Corresponding author. Address: University of Giessen, Department of Psychology and Sport Science, Kugelberg 6Giessen, Germany. Tel.: +49 641 9925233; fax: +49 641 9925239.

E-mail address: heiko.maurer@sport.uni-giessen.de (H. Maurer).

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motformance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013),dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

Heiko Maurer ⇑, Jörn MunzertDepartment of Psychology and Sport Science, University of Giessen, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Available online xxxx

PsycINFO classification:233023463270

Keywords:AttentionExperience LevelFamiliaritySports

Recent studies have demonstrated that the direction of attentionalfocus exerts a substantial influence on motor performance. Weargue that in well-learned skills, this variable might be confoundedwith athletes’ familiarity with focus conditions. We studied theeffect of familiarity and the direction of attentional focus on perfor-mance in two experiments using 2 (familiarity) � 2 (direction)within-subject designs. A significant main effect of familiarity—that is, better performance under familiar compared with unfamil-iar focus conditions—confirmed the influence of familiarity onmotor performance. Results are consistent with existing concepts,but lead to different consequences when applied to sport andexercise.

� 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Psychological research reveals a strong interest in understanding the underlying processes thatgovern skilled motor performance (Ericsson, 2003). In recent years, numerous studies have demon-strated that directing attention during skill execution is a crucial factor for successful skilled perfor-mance (e.g., Beilock, Carr, MacMahon, & Starkes, 2002; Castaneda & Gray, 2007; Ford, Hodges, &Williams, 2005; Wulf, 2007a).

One line of research concentrates on the direction of attentional focus by distinguishing betweenskill-focused (on any aspect of the motor action) versus environmental-focused attention (on environ-mental aspects that are not involved directly in skill execution) (e.g., Beilock, Bertenthal, McCoy, &Carr, 2004; Beilock et al., 2002; Ford et al., 2005; Gray, 2004). With reference to stage models of learn-

2, 35394

or per-http://

2 H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

ing (Anderson, 1993; Fitts & Posner, 1967; Schneider & Fisk, 1983), this approach assumes that the ef-fects of attentional focus depend on skill level. In early learning phases, it is proposed that explicit cog-nitive processes are used to control actions in a step-by-step fashion. Hence, directing attentiontoward skill execution should be helpful for novices. With extended practice, however, the compo-nents of the skill become more and more proceduralized and can be executed in an automatic waywithout constant attentional monitoring (Anderson, 1993; Fitts & Posner, 1967). It is assumed thatrefocusing attention on proceduralized components can then hinder skilled performance by bringingthese components back into working memory and decomposing them into smaller units (Beilock et al.,2002; Ford et al., 2005; Gray, 2004; Masters, 1992; Masters & Maxwell, 2008). This explanation forsuboptimal performance in well-practiced motor skills has also been called the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis (Ford et al., 2005).

Assumptions based on the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis have been confirmed using thedual-task paradigm. For example, Beilock et al. (2004, Experiment 1) examined novice and expert golf-ers’ putting performance under skill-focused and dual-task conditions. In the skill-focused condition,participants were instructed to monitor their swing and attempt to move their club head straight to-ward the target. In the dual-task condition, they putted while reacting to a series of tones designed todirect attention away from skill execution. As expected, the expert golfers were generally more accu-rate putters than the novices. Furthermore, novice putting was more accurate under skill-focused thanunder dual-task conditions, whereas experts showed the opposite pattern. Similar results have beenreported for a soccer dribbling task (Beilock et al., 2002; Ford et al., 2005) and a simulated baseballbatting task (Gray, 2004).

For highly practiced skills, the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis suggests that it is beneficial tofocus on environmental aspects that are not involved directly in the online control of the movement(e.g., tones or word sequences in the above-mentioned studies). One conclusion for sports situationswould be to focus attention on the audience or teammates, or even to try to think of extraneous infor-mation. However, another line of research suggests that it might be more beneficial to direct attentiontoward the effects of the movement on the environment. Studies in this field also address the directionof attentional focus, but they distinguish between an internal focus (on one’s own body movements)versus an external focus of attention (on the movement effects in the environment) (Wulf, 2007a; Wulf& Prinz, 2001). In terms of the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis, an internal focus is always skill-focused, whereas an external focus can be either skill-focused or environmental-focused but is alwaysa focus toward a movement-induced effect.

Wulf and colleagues have performed numerous studies showing that an external effect-related fo-cus of attention can enhance actual motor performance (see, for reviews, Wulf, 2007a,b). For example,expert golfers demonstrated greater pitch shot accuracy when instructed to use an external focus (onthe pendulum-like motion of the club) compared with an internal focus (on the swing motion of thearms) (Wulf & Su, 2007, Experiment 2). This study directed attention toward skill execution in boththe internal and external focus conditions. In contrast, attention can also be directed toward tempo-rally and spatially more distal movement effects under external focus conditions (e.g., toward the tra-jectory of a ball or toward a target). Perkins-Ceccato, Passmore, and Lee (2003) as well as Wulf and Su(2007) have confirmed the external focus advantage for more distal external focus conditions as well.

Wulf and colleagues formulated the constrained action hypothesis to explain the external focusadvantage (McNevin, Shea, & Wulf, 2003; Wulf, 2007a). They assumed that using an external focuspromotes a more automatic mode of movement control, whereas an internal focus constrains the mo-tor system by intervening with ‘‘normal’’ control processes. They supported this view with empiricaldata on attentional capacity (Wulf, McNevin, & Shea, 2001), frequency of movement adaptations inbalance tasks (McNevin et al., 2003), and muscular activity (Zachry, Wulf, Mercer, & Bezodis, 2005).

Castaneda and Gray (2007) analyzed predictions regarding which focus condition increases theprobability for successful performance based on both hypotheses (deautomatization-of-skills and con-strained action) in a simulated baseball batting task performed by high- and low-skilled players. Theyconfirmed the basic assumptions of both hypotheses. It is important to mention that the high-skilledplayers attained a higher batting performance when using an environmental-external focus (on thedirection of the departing ball) compared to an environmental-irrelevant focus (on the frequency ofa presented auditory tone). An environmental effect-related focus might be more beneficial than an

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 3

environmental irrelevant focus, because it highlights the perceivable effects of the movement, and thismight be more helpful when producing an appropriate action as suggested by Castaneda and Gray(2007) as well as Ford, Hodges, Huys, and Williams (2009) with reference to common coding theory(Prinz, 1990, 1997).

A closer look at the assumptions proposed within the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis re-veals two possibly confounded variables—familiarity and direction of attentional focus. The basic ideawithin the approach is a deautomatization of highly practiced skills by directing attention towardmovement execution (direction: toward skill execution), thus also directing attention toward aspectsthat athletes might normally no longer attend to (familiarity: low). In contrast, it is assumed thatdirecting attention toward environmental aspects (direction: away from skill execution) does not dis-rupt proceduralized skill components and this is also what experts might normally do (familiarity:high). This raises the question whether the direction of attentional focus is the core variable respon-sible for the proceduralized skill components to either run uninterruptedly or be hampered. Fre-quently used attentional strategies might become integrated into the proceduralized skillcomponents and thus no longer disruptive due to their familiarity. From this perspective, it wouldbe interesting to see whether unfamiliar attentional focus conditions can cause a deautomatizationof highly practiced skills irrespective of the direction of the attentional focus.

A related variable—preference for using attentional focus strategies—has already been studied insome fairly recent experiments (Ehrlenspiel, Lieske, & Rübner, 2004; Marchant, Clough, Crawshaw,& Levy, 2009; Weiss, Reber, & Owen, 2008). The main result of these studies is that participants’ per-formance suffered when they preferred an external focus and were forced to switch to a nonpreferredinternal focus. It is important to note that these experiments studied preference effects in less skilledparticipants, which clearly runs counter to our concept of familiarity in which highly practiced ath-letes develop very specific attentional strategies in proceduralized skills. Thus, the aim of the follow-ing two experiments is to clarify the effect of the variables direction and familiarity of attentional focuson skilled motor performance.

1. Experiment 1

A 2 (direction: skill-internal vs. environmental-external) � 2 (familiarity: low vs. high) within-sub-ject design was applied. Because we expected that highly practiced performers have acquired veryspecific individual attentional strategies (see, Gray, 2004), participants were asked to complete a ques-tionnaire. This determined individually familiar and unfamiliar attentional foci by asking each playerto specify which internal and external movement aspects they attend to often and which aspects theynormally do not attend to.

1.1. Method

1.1.1. ParticipantsTwenty-three female basketball players from the German junior national team participated and

provided informed consent. All procedures were conducted according to the guidelines of the Amer-ican Psychological Association. Participants were 14–18 years old (M = 16.30, SD = 1.29 years) and hadseveral years of experience in competitive basketball (M = 7.85, SD = 2.16 years). The study was con-ducted within a national team training camp.

1.1.2. Attentional focus conditionsParticipants were asked to perform series of free throw shooting using different attentional foci

(skill-internal/familiar, skill-internal/unfamiliar, environmental-external/familiar, and environmen-tal-external/unfamiliar). To manipulate familiarity experimentally, we used the above-mentionedquestionnaire to create individually familiar and unfamiliar focus conditions for each player. The ques-tionnaire contained one list of skill-internal movement aspects and one list of environmental-externalaspects specified by participants in a previous study who had been asked to report which aspects theydirected their attention toward during free throw shooting (see Table 1 for the two lists of movement

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

Table 1Lists of skill-internal and environmental-external movement aspects used in Experiment 1.

Familiar Unfamiliar

Skill-internal Straightening arm (6) Straightening arm (3)Snapping wrist (6) Snapping wrist (1)Straightening legs (2) Straightening legs (2)Fluent leg-arm coordination (7) Fluent leg-arm coordination (6)Elbow under ball (1) Elbow under ball (6)Feeling ball’s weight (0) Feeling ball’s weight (5)Weight on both feet⁄ (1)

Environmental-external Basket (5) Basket (0)Front part of rim (4) Front part of rim (3)Middle of rim (6) Middle of rim (0)Ball falling through basket (4) Ball falling through basket (2)Ball flight trajectory (2) Ball flight trajectory (3)Highest point of ball flight (0) Highest point of ball flight (5)Rectangle of board (0) Rectangle of board (10)Back part of rim⁄ (2)

Note: The lists of skill-internal and environmental-external movement aspects were presented to the players with the ques-tionnaire ascertaining individually familiar and unfamiliar focus conditions. The two aspects highlighted with ⁄ were added tothe lists by players because they often attended to these aspects. The numbers of players selecting these aspects under thedifferent conditions are given in parentheses.

4 H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

aspects and the frequencies of selections). In order to specify familiar skill-internal and environmen-tal-external focus conditions, we asked participants to choose one aspect they often attend to fromeach list. The lists could be extended if players did not find matching aspects, which was the casein three participants (see Table 1). The unfamiliar skill-internal and environmental-external focus con-ditions were specified by asking participants to choose one aspect from each list that they normallyignore. For each player, these four individually specified skill-internal and environmental-externalmovement aspects were used to generate the focus instructions within the four experimental condi-tions. Before performing the free throws under a specific attentional focus condition, players were gi-ven the following instructions: ‘‘Please focus your attention on [one of the four previously specifiedmovement aspects] while performing the free throws in the following throwing series. Afterwards,you will be asked to rate how well you were able to implement this focus into your throwingmovement.’’

1.1.3. ProcedureThe experiment was conducted under standard free throw conditions on an indoor basketball

court. Only one participant and the experimenters were on the court simultaneously. Players per-formed 20 free throws in each experimental condition. Performance was measured by counting thepercentage of successful trials (i.e., ball passes through the basket irrespective of touching the rimor board) under each focus condition.

After a warm-up series to accustom the players to the experimental setup, they completed thequestionnaire for determining the different focus conditions. To prepare each of the subsequent fourexperimental conditions, they were instructed to direct their attention toward the specified aspectwhile performing their free throw shots. After each series, participants had to complete ratings onimplementation quality and on the perceived impairment of the focus condition. They had to ratethe ease of realization of the respective focus instructions on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 (verywell) to 10 (not at all), and whether they felt disturbed in free throw shooting when focusing on thespecified aspects on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 10 (very strongly). These ratings weredesigned as a manipulation check and to ensure that participants complied with the focusinstructions.

The order of experimental conditions was varied systematically to control for sequence effects.Considering the number of participants, 23 out of 24 possible orders were used. At the end of thewhole procedure, participants completed another questionnaire specifying their basketball experi-

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 5

ence. Furthermore, they were asked whether they had a general preference in directing attention to-ward the throwing movement (e.g., toward the straightening of the arm—i.e., using a skill-internal fo-cus) or toward effects of the movement (e.g., toward the ball flight—i.e., using an environmental-external focus of attention).

1.2. Results

1.2.1. Free-throw shooting performanceFig. 1 presents the mean percentage of successful shots in the different experimental conditions.

Under familiar focus conditions, participants attained hit rates of 71.30% (skill-internal) and 67.83%(environmental-external); under unfamiliar focus conditions 65.65% (skill-internal) and 62.39% (envi-ronmental-external). Note that these hit rates confirm the high expertise of the participating athletes.A 2 (Familiarity) � 2 (Direction) ANOVA with repeated measures revealed a significant main effect offamiliarity, F(1, 22) = 5.12, p < .05, gp

2 = .19, but no significant main effect for direction, F(1, 22) = 1.56,p = .23, gp

2 = .07, and no significant familiarity � direction interaction, F(1, 22) < .01, p = .97, gp2 < .01.

This result indicates better free-throw shooting performance under familiar focus conditions irrespec-tive of focus direction.

1.2.2. Content of the focus conditionsAll participants were able to specify skill-internal and environmental-external movement aspects

that they often attend to (familiar) and that they normally ignore (unfamiliar). Table 1 lists the spec-ified aspects toward which players directed their attention within the four focus conditions (frequen-cies of selections are given in parentheses). It can be seen that not all of the movement aspects werechosen equally often under familiar and unfamiliar focus conditions.

Means and standard errors of athletes’ ratings after the throwing series are reported in Table 2. Be-cause a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test revealed that the ratings did not follow a normal distribution, theywere analyzed with nonparametric methods based on the nonparametric marginal model (Brunner,Demhof, & Langer, 2002; Brunner & Puri, 2001). For the ease-of-realization rating, a 2 (Familiarity) � 2(Direction) analysis with repeated measures revealed a significant main effect of familiarity, F(1,1) = 4.48, p < .05, suggesting that it was easier for participants to implement their familiar attentionalstrategies. No significant effects were found for direction, F(1, 1) = 2.10, p = .15, or for the familiar-ity � direction interaction, F(1,1) = .33, p = .56. Similar results were found for the ratings of the play-ers’ perceived interference of attentional foci with free throw shooting. They felt more impaired whenusing unfamiliar foci, as indicated by a significant main effect of familiarity, F(1, 1) = 15.93, p < .001.Again, no significant effects were found for direction, F(1, 1) = .43, p = .51, or for the familiar-ity � direction interaction, F(1, 1) = .80, p = .37.

Fig. 1. Mean percentage of successful throws out of a series of 20 shots under the four focus conditions. Error bars representstandard errors.

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

Table 2Means and standard errors of players’ self-ratings on ease of realization of the specific attentional focus and on disturbancethrough the specific focus.

Ease of realization Disturbance through focus

Familiar Unfamiliar Familiar UnfamiliarM (SE) M (SE) M (SE) M (SE)

Skill-internal 3.30 (0.37) 3.83 (0.38) 2.43 (0.33) 4.70 (0.43)Environmental-external 3.65 (0.48) 4.65 (0.48) 3.00 (0.46) 4.87 (0.60)

6 H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

At the end of the experimental procedure, participants were asked whether they generally pre-ferred skill-internal or environmental-external focus strategies. Eighteen players reported a prefer-ence for skill-internal attentional foci in free throw shooting; only five preferred environmental-external foci.

1.3. Discussion

The main interest of Experiment 1 was in clarifying the role of the variables direction and familiarityof attentional focus on motor performance in highly practiced skills. Our results confirm the assump-tion that familiarity with attentional focus conditions influences the free throw performance of skilledbasketball players.

The participants’ ratings after the throwing series were consistent with the performance data. Theywere better at realizing their familiar attentional foci, and they felt more disturbed in throwing whenfocusing on unfamiliar aspects. However, ratings revealed neither a main effect of direction nor a sig-nificant interaction between direction and familiarity. Ratings on the self-perceived impairment dueto the focus conditions cannot be interpreted directly as a measure for deautomatization. Further-more, it is possible that participants’ ratings are influenced by their performance in the previousthrowing series. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see that players did not feel more impaired in throw-ing under skill-internal focus conditions—as might have been expected on the basis of the deautoma-tization-of-skills hypothesis.

However, creating individual focus conditions had two consequences that might hinder a clearinterpretation of the familiarity effect. First, not all skill-internal and environmental-external focusinstructions were used equally often under familiar and unfamiliar focus conditions. Second, onecan argue that asking the players to specify their frequently used (familiar) and not frequently used(unfamiliar) attentional strategies might have raised players’ expectation to perform better underfamiliar conditions. Experiment 2 took these possible limitations into account.

2. Experiment 2

Experiment 2 was designed to replicate the results of Experiment 1 and to overcome possiblemethodological limitations resulting from studying familiarity effects in highly practiced athletes.In Experiment 2, familiarity with attentional focus conditions was generated in novices by learninga new motor task (golf putting) using standardized attentional foci. A 2 (familiarity) � 2 (direction)within-subject design was applied, but familiarity with attentional focus conditions was generated.The chosen methodology allows a comparison of the same attentional foci under familiar and unfamil-iar focus conditions. In addition, participants were not aware that familiar and unfamiliar focus con-ditions were being compared—as might have been the case in Experiment 1.

2.1. Method

2.1.1. ParticipantsFourteen golf novices (8 male, 6 female, Mage = 23.29 years, SDage = 2.67 years) were recruited as

participants for Experiment 2. They provided signed informed consent before taking part in theexperiment.

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 7

2.1.2. Task and procedureParticipants practiced a golf putting task on a carpeted indoor green (5 m � 1.2 m) using a standard

golf putter and ball. The ball was placed at a distance of 3.0 m from the center of the hole. The depen-dent variable was the percentage of successful trials in each test condition.

The experiment involved two practice sessions and a separate test session conducted within oneweek. Each practice session consisted of 10 blocks of 15 trials; the test session contained 5 blocksof 30 trials. Regarding the total amount of 300 putts over the two practice sessions, participantscan certainly not be expected to reach a degree of automatization and familiarity with attentional fo-cus conditions similar to the highly practiced athletes in Experiment 1. Nonetheless, it seems plausiblethat deautomatization effects will occur after such amounts of practice, as indicated by results re-ported by Beilock and Carr (2001, Experiment 3) after a similar amount of practice in a putting task.

To generate familiarity with a specific internal and external attentional focus during the practicesessions, participants were instructed to alternate between an internal and an external attentional fo-cus in each successive block. Within the practice session, half of the participants used the focusinstructions INT1 (‘‘Direct your attention toward the triangle formed by your arms and shoulders. Itmoves in a smooth and pendulum fashion.’’) and EXT1 (‘‘Direct your attention toward the movementof the club head. It moves on a virtual line between the ball and the middle of the hole.’’). The otherhalf used the focus instructions INT2 (‘‘Direct your attention toward your wrists. They remain fixedwhile moving.’’) and EXT2 (‘‘Direct your attention to the movement of the club head. It continues mov-ing toward the target after hitting the ball.’’). That way, the familiarity with the specific internal andexternal focus instructions was balanced between participants. Additionally, whether they startedwith the internal or external focus instruction in the first block of the practice phase was alsobalanced.

After giving informed consent, participants were introduced to the putting task and their focusinstructions. They were informed that they should direct their attention alternately toward two spe-cific aspects while performing the task. Initially, they read the focus instructions attached to a posterboard placed at a distance of 2.2 m from participants’ position while performing the putting task. Theywere asked whether they had a clear idea about which aspects they should attend to. Possible uncer-tainties were clarified verbally. Prior to the first putt of each block, participants were reminded of theinstructions for that particular block. After each block, individuals had to rate the ease of realization ofthe respective focus condition on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 (very well) to 10 (not at all).

The first block of the test session was used as a baseline condition. Participants were asked to per-form the putts while doing a tone counting task to determine their putting performance independentof the specific attentional focus strategies. The tone counting task was designed similarly to the oneused by Poolton, Maxwell, Masters, and Raab (2006). Low (200 Hz) and high (400 Hz) tones with alength of 300 ms were presented from a computer in random order and at random intervals with amean length of 1200 ms (SD = 300 ms). Participants were asked to perform the putts as accuratelyas possible but also exactly count the tones irrespective of the tones’ pitch. Within the next four testblocks, participants were asked to use their two familiar and two unfamiliar internal and external fo-cus conditions. To control for sequence effects, the order of the four focus conditions internal–familiar,internal–unfamiliar, external–familiar, and external–unfamiliar was varied, that is, 14 out of the 24possible test orders were chosen randomly.

2.2. Results

Again, participants performed better under familiar focus conditions, that is, they performed39.29% (SE = 5.09%) and 38.81% (SE = 4.60%) successful trials under familiar internal and external focusconditions, and 36.67% (SE = 4.87%) and 33.10% (SE = 5.12%) successful trials under unfamiliar internaland external focus conditions. A 2 (familiarity) � 2 (direction) ANOVA with repeated measures re-vealed a significant main effect for familiarity, F(1, 13) = 4.83, p < .05, gp

2 = .27, but no significant maineffect for direction, F(1, 13) = 1.06, p = .32, gp

2 = .08, and no familiarity � direction interaction, F(1,13) = .33, p = .57, gp

2 = .03. An additional 2 (familiarity) � 2 (direction) � 2 (instruction) ANOVA wasused to control whether the result pattern depended on the specific focus instructions (i.e., whetherinstructions INT1 and EXT1 had a different effect on performance than INT2 and EXT2). This was

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

8 H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

not the case, because neither a significant instruction effect nor a two-way or three-way interactioneffect with the variable instruction was found as indicated by F values <1.0 for all effects.

A one-way ANOVA with repeated measures and a priori contrasts was used to compare the resultsof the four attentional focus conditions with the performance in the baseline condition. Whereas par-ticipants performed significantly better when using familiar attentional foci (internal: F(1, 13) = 4.69,p < .05, gp

2 = .27, external: F(1, 13) = 9.36, p < .01, gp2 = .42) than under the baseline condition, there

were no significant differences between performance under unfamiliar focus conditions (internal: F(1,13) = 2.28, p = .16, gp

2 = .15, external: F(1, 13) = .48, p = .50, gp2 = .04) and the baseline.

For the participants’ ease-of-realization ratings, a 2 (Familiarity) � 2 (Direction) ANOVA with re-peated measures did not reveal any significant statistical results for familiarity: F(1, 13) = 1.68,p = .22, gp

2 = .12, direction: F(1, 13) = .11, p = .75, gp2 < .01, or familiarity � direction: F(1, 13) = .94,

p = .35, gp2 = .07.

2.3. Discussion

Experiment 2 was designed to replicate the results of Experiment 1 using a different operational-ization of familiarity with attentional focus conditions. In contrast to Experiment 1, participants werenot asked to specify familiar and unfamiliar focus conditions but had to practice under specific inter-nal and external instructions before switching to unfamiliar internal and external instructions. Exactlythe same pattern of results was found in Experiment 2 as in Experiment 1, that is, a main effect offamiliarity indicating better performance under familiar focus conditions. In Experiment 2, an addi-tional baseline condition was introduced using a tone counting task while putting to prevent partic-ipants using specific attentional foci. Whereas there was no difference between performance in thebaseline condition and the unfamiliar focus conditions, putting performance was significantly betterunder familiar compared to the baseline condition. These results fit in well with the assumption thatfrequently used familiar focus strategies become integrated into the proceduralized skill componentsand are no longer disruptive to skill execution. Using the unfamiliar focus conditions, however, mighthave introduced some additional cognitive load similar to the tone counting task resulting in lowerperformance. This can be interpreted as less automated skill execution.

3. Discussion

The main interest in the present experiments was to gain more detailed insights into the mecha-nisms of attentional processes that influence skilled motor performance. The deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis suggests that directing attention toward the execution of highly practiced skillscan cause a deautomatization of proceduralized skill components and thereby disrupt performance(Beilock et al., 2002; Ford et al., 2005; Gray, 2004). We argue that the variables direction and familiar-ity of attentional focus might be confounded, and that it is not clear whether a change in the directionof attentional focus (environmental to skill-focused) is responsible for disrupting proceduralized skillcomponents, or whether it is the switch from a familiar to an unfamiliar attentional strategy that de-creases performance. Frequently used attentional strategies may become integrated parts of the skilland no longer impact on automated skill execution. Hence, we suggest that familiarity with atten-tional focus conditions might be a more critical variable for disrupting proceduralized motor skillsthan the direction of attentional focus.

The influence of familiarity with attentional focus conditions was studied in two experiments. InExperiment 1 highly skilled young basketball players were asked to perform free throw shooting whilefocusing their attention on the skill-internal and environmental-external aspects they often attend to(familiar condition) and to aspects they normally ignore (unfamiliar condition). Questionnaires wereused to ascertain the attentional strategies of participants and to subsequently generate individuallyfamiliar and unfamiliar focus conditions. As hypothesized, players performed better under familiar fo-cus conditions. However, a potential drawback of this experiment is that players might have beeninfluenced by the a priori questionnaire about their familiar and unfamiliar foci. In Experiment 2,we prevented this by using novices who were blind to the focus on familiarity. That is, they were in-

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 9

structed to use internal and external focus conditions in practicing golf putting over two days. Thismeant that familiarity was generated rather than assessed. In a test session, they putted under thesefamiliar focus conditions and under additional unfamiliar conditions. Again, participants performedsignificantly better under familiar focus conditions.

In both experiments, we found no effect of direction of attentional focus instructions. Due to thewell-documented external focus advantage we are hesitant to argue that direction of attentional focusdoes not have any influence on skilled motor performance. In Experiment 1, there might have beentwo reasons for the missing direction effect. First, most players (18 out of 23) reported a general pref-erence for focusing their attention toward the free throw shooting movement, and this may welladvantage performance under these focus conditions. Second, because participants used individual-ized focus instructions, they focused their attention on very different aspects within the skill-internaland environmental-external focus conditions, and not all of them might be equally helpful for per-forming the task. In Experiment 2, participants were familiarized with internal and external focus con-ditions within the practice phase. This design differs from those in other experiments studying theeffects of internal and external attentional focus conditions, thereby making a direct comparison ofthe internal/external effect difficult.

Furthermore, it has to be pointed out that the methodology of the present experiments differs fromthat used in most studies addressing the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis. Whereas these studiesused secondary tasks to direct attention toward skill execution or toward task-irrelevant environmen-tal aspects (e.g., Beilock et al., 2002; Gray, 2004), we used instructions to direct the players’ attentiontoward either skill-internal or environmental-external movement aspects. These differences preventany direct comparison of results. Nonetheless, the present findings are compatible with existing dataand the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis (Ford et al., 2005). The basic idea of the deautomatiza-tion-of-skills hypothesis is that proceduralized skill components are disrupted by directing attentiontoward aspects that athletes normally no longer attend to—that is, by using an unfamiliar attentionalfocus. Many expert athletes may normally direct their attention toward environmental aspects such asthe position of teammates or the final effect of a task (Ford et al., 2009), so that focusing on the skillexecution might also be an unfamiliar attentional focus for them. Recent results (Wulf, 2008) are inline with these considerations. Wulf studied the effects of attentional focus conditions in balance acro-bats performing a balance task (standing on an inflated rubber disk). While there were no differencesbetween internal (‘‘focus on minimizing movements of your feet’’) and external (‘‘focus on minimizingmovements of the disc’’) focus instructions, participants showed higher frequencies of movementadaptations in the control condition when they were free to adopt their ‘‘normal’’ focus of attention.In line with our assumptions, one might expect that the balance experts developed very specific atten-tional strategies over years of practice, and it can be supposed that they used these familiar focus con-ditions in the control condition.

Hence, the suggested role of familiarity is a specification of the causation of the deautomatizationof skilled performance and not a new explanation of how skilled performance can be impaired byattentional processes. However, when it comes to making possible recommendations for athletes’attentional strategies, consequences differ quite considerably: If direction were to be the central var-iable, then one would recommend athletes to avoid focusing on skill-internal aspects and direct theirattention toward environmental-external aspects. In contrast, if familiarity were central, one wouldadvise them to use familiar focus strategies, and one suitable focus strategy would also be to focuson skill-internal movement aspects. At this point, it should be emphasized that using a preferredand familiar attentional focus condition does not necessarily have to be the most beneficial approach,as indicated in results reported by Stoate and Wulf (2011) and Wulf, Shea, and Park (2001). For in-stance, Wulf et al. (2001) found better performance under external focus conditions in a balance taskirrespective of players’ preference for internal and external focus instructions. Participants in thisstudy, however, were novices, and their familiarity with the specific focus conditions was low. In con-trast, results from Wulf (2008) with balance acrobats indicate an effect of familiarity. Hence, familiar-ity with attentional focus conditions might be of higher relevance in skilled performance, which is inline with the assumptions of the deautomatization-of-skills hypothesis.

We hypothesized that familiar attentional focus conditions would not negatively impact on move-ment execution because such frequently used attentional foci might become integrated parts of pro-

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

10 H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx

ceduralized skill execution. Now we would like to discuss our results on the level of underlying motorcontrol processes since this might help to specify how such a deautomatization of proceduralized mo-tor skills impacts on motor execution and provokes performance breakdowns. Two recent findings areimportant in this regard. First, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that focusing attention towardmovement execution results in increased muscular co-contraction compared to an external focus ofattention. This was found in force production tasks (e.g., Lohse & Sherwood, 2012; Vance, Wulf, Töll-ner, McNevin, & Mercer, 2004) as well as in complex sports skills as basketball free throw shooting(Hossner & Ehrlenspiel, 2010; Zachry et al., 2005). Such an increase in muscular stiffness is commonlyinterpreted as ‘‘freezing degrees of freedom’’ with reference to Bernstein (1967), that is, a strategy toenlarge control in movement execution. Second, Hossner and Ehrlenspiel (2010) showed that the in-creased muscular co-contraction is accompanied by a reduction of compensatory variability which canbe a reason for degraded performance in goal oriented tasks (Müller & Sternad, 2004). Let us now con-sider the familiarity effect. Muscular co-contraction can also be expected here. Using an unfamiliar fo-cus regardless of direction should be a situation with increased uncertainty for a person—how will theunfamiliar focus impact on movement execution and performance? Hence, one might expect that thissituation induces the attempt to control the movement in more detail resulting in a general increase inmuscular stiffness. Combined with the result of reduced compensatory variability when muscular co-contraction increases, this might lead to performance decrements and can be an explanation for ourresult on the motor control level. Summarizing these considerations, a motor control perspectiveaccompanied by analyzing physiological and kinematic measures of movement execution can fruit-fully extend research on the effects of attentional focus. This would also allow capturing changes inmovement planning and execution which do not necessarily have to be reflected in motorperformance.

The results of the present experiments demonstrate how familiarity with attentional focus condi-tions has a considerable impact on motor performance. This has important consequences not only forthe theoretical concepts about directing attention in motor skill execution but also for the formulationof recommendations for competitive settings in sports.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by grants from the German National Institute for Sport Sciences underreference number 07/10/68/04 and 07/10/04/05.

References

Anderson, J. (1993). Rules of mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure? Journal of

Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 701–725.Beilock, S. L., Carr, T., MacMahon, C., & Starkes, J. (2002). When paying attention becomes counterproductive: Impact of divided

versus skill-focused attention on novice and experienced performance of sensorimotor skills. Journal of ExperimentalPsychology: Applied, 8, 6–16.

Beilock, S. L., Bertenthal, B. I., McCoy, A. M., & Carr, T. (2004). Haste does not always make waste: Expertise, direction ofattention, and speed versus accuracy in performing sensorimotor skills. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 373–379.

Bernstein, N. (1967). The co-ordination and regulation of movements. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Brunner, E., Demhof, S., & Langer, F. (2002). Nonparametric analysis of longitudinal data in factorial experiments. New York, NY:

Wiley.Brunner, E., & Puri, M. (2001). Nonparametric methods in factorial designs. Statistical Papers, 42, 1–52.Castaneda, B., & Gray, R. (2007). Effects of focus of attention on baseball batting performance in players of differing skill levels.

Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29, 60–77.Ehrlenspiel, F., Lieske, J., & Rübner, A. (2004). Interaction between preference and instructions for a focus of attention. Perceptual

and Motor Skills, 99, 127–130.Ericsson, K. A. (2003). Development of elite performance and deliberate practice. In J. L. Starkes & K. A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert

performance in sports: Advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 49–83). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Fitts, P., & Posner, M. (1967). Human performance. Belmont, CA: Brooks & Cole.Ford, P., Hodges, N. J., Huys, R., & Williams, A. M. (2009). An evaluation of end-point trajectory planning during skilled kicking.

Motor Control, 13, 1–24.Ford, P., Hodges, N. J., & Williams, M. A. (2005). Online attentional-focus manipulations in a soccer-dribbling task: Implications

for the proceduralization of motor skills. Journal of Motor Behavior, 37, 386–394.

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001

H. Maurer, J. Munzert / Human Movement Science xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 11

Gray, R. (2004). Attending to the execution of a complex sensorimotor skill: Expertise differences, choking, and slumps. Journalof Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10, 42–54.

Hossner, E.-J., & Ehrlenspiel, F. (2010). Time-referenced effects of an internal vs. external focus of attention on muscular activityand compensatory variability. Frontiers in Psychology, 1, 230. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00230.

Lohse, K. R., & Sherwood, D. E. (2012). Thinking about muscles: The neuromuscular effects of attentional focus on accuracy andfatigue. Acta Psychologica, 140, 236–245.

Marchant, D. C., Clough, P. J., Crawshaw, M., & Levy, A. (2009). Novice motor skill performance and task experience is influencedby attentional focusing instructions and instruction preferences. International Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 7,488–502.

Masters, R. (1992). Knowledge, knerves and know-how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of acomplex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 343–358.

Masters, R., & Maxwell, J. (2008). The theory of reinvestment. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1, 160–183.McNevin, M., Shea, C., & Wulf, G. (2003). Increasing the distance of an external focus of attention enhances learning.

Psychological Research, 67, 22–29.Müller, H., & Sternad, D. (2004). Decomposition of variability in the execution of goal-oriented tasks: Three components of skill

improvement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 212–233.Perkins-Ceccato, N., Passmore, S., & Lee, T. (2003). Effects of focus of attention depend on golfers’ skill. Journal of Sports Sciences,

21, 593–600.Poolton, J. M., Maxwell, J. P., Masters, R. S., & Raab, M. (2006). Benefits of an external focus of attention: Common coding or

conscious processing. Journal of Sports Sciences, 24, 89–99.Prinz, W. (1997). Perception and action planning. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 9, 129–154.Prinz, W. (1990). A common coding approach to perception and action. In O. Neumann & W. Prinz (Eds.), Relations between

perception and action: Current approaches (pp. 167–201). Berlin, Germany: Springer.Schneider, W., & Fisk, A. D. (1983). Attention theory and mechanisms for skilled performance. In R. Magill (Ed.), Memory and

control of action (pp. 119–143). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.Stoate, I., & Wulf, G. (2011). Does the attentional focus adopted by swimmers affect their performance? International Journal of

Sports Science & Coaching, 6, 99–108.Vance, J., Wulf, G., Töllner, T., McNevin, N., & Mercer, J. (2004). EMG activity as a function of the performer’s focus of attention.

Journal of Motor Behavior, 36, 450–459.Weiss, S. M., Reber, A. S., & Owen, D. R. (2008). The locus of focus: The effect of switching from a preferred to a non-preferred

focus of attention. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26, 1049–1057.Wulf, G. (2007). Attention and motor skill learning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Wulf, G. (2007a). Attentional focus and motor learning: A review of 10 years of research. In E.-J. Hossner & N. Wenderoth (Eds.),

Wulf on attentional focus and motor learning [Target article]. E-Journal Bewegung und Training, 1, 4–14. Retrieved from<http://www.sportwissenschaft.de/fileadmin/pdf/BuT/hossner_wulf.pdf>.

Wulf, G. (2008). Attentional focus effects in balance acrobats. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79, 319–325.Wulf, G., McNevin, N., & Shea, C. (2001). The automaticity of complex motor skill learning as a function of attention focus. The

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A, 1143–1154.Wulf, G., & Prinz, W. (2001). Directing attention to movement effects enhances learning: A review. Psychonomic Bulletin &

Review, 8, 648–660.Wulf, G., Shea, C., & Park, J.-H. (2001). Attention and motor performance: Preferences for and advantages of an external focus.

Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 72, 335–344.Wulf, G., & Su, J. (2007). An external focus of attention enhances golf shot accuracy in beginners and experts. Research Quarterly

for Exercise and Sport, 78, 384–389.Zachry, T., Wulf, G., Mercer, J., & Bezodis, N. (2005). Increased movement accuracy and reduced EMG activity as the result of

adopting an external focus of attention. Brain Research Bulletin, 67, 304–309.

Please cite this article in press as: Maurer, H., & Munzert, J. Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor per-formance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions. Human Movement Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.02.001