The Neuroscience of Mental Imagery as it Relates to Athlete Performance
Mental imagery is used in people’s every day’s lives whether they realize it or not. It is the experience of closing your eyes and seeing seeing yourself in different situations of the past, or hearing sounds that are familiar and remind you of a certain circumstance, or anything that causes you to visualize something of the past or future in your head (Jeannerod, 1995). This imagery plays an important role in the every day thought processes of people because it is used as mental representation for certain things like their actions and aspects of learning (Jeannerod, 1995). This is why mental imagery is becoming more of a popular use among people to try and learn/master important skills.
Specifically, athletes have shown to be using mental imagery more often because it has been seen to help in performance. Mentally training your brain through imagery has been seen to improve motor performance, which is why it is becoming more popular in the athletic world (Jeannerod, 1995). The main thing mental imagery is being used for among athletes are for things like anxiety management, strengthening certain skills, self-confidence, and pain control as it relates to injury (Jones & Stuth, 1997). This is why it is very important to research mental imagery and the different parts of the brain it effects as it relates to athletic performance because there is a lot of research to be done in order to find all the benefits that come with performance after mental imagery. This happens because it is a type of cognitive rehearsal when there is not physical rehearsal taking place, but they both create similar impulses in the brain. It is because the brain cannot differentiate between physical events or an imagery stimulation of the same event (Parnabas et al., 2015). It gives athletes the opportunity to relive certain events where they are performing in order to further develop some of their skills.
While athletes are using their skill of mental imagery, they are working to recreate or create a new experience in their mind while they are thinking of the goal they wish to achieve. Specifically, the brain cells are functioning to remember and recreate pieces of an experience in order to display it in a meaningful way. Through these actions, the athletes are able to vividly remember a detailed experience to a point where they can feel how it felt to perform and remember the exact skills they were using. The athletes also work to piece together information from different experiences in order to recall specific skills and create a situation they want to happen in the future (Omar-Fauzee, 2009). This manipulation helps athletes prepare for future events like competition or drills during practice.
There was a study done to examine the parts of the brain that are active while one is participating in mental imagery. What was found was that most activity occurred in the frontal-parietal control regions. This includes the anterior frontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the intraparietal sulcus. The other part that is active is the occipital-temporal visual sensory regions, including the fusiform gyrus and striate cortex (Slotnick, Thompson, & Kosslyn, 2011). It has also been shown that these areas of the brain show the same kind of visual information as they do in perception (Farah, 1989). This is important to know because perception is how someone interprets sensory information. When someone is perceptually learning, they are experiencing a repeated performance of a particular task. This is how someone changes their aspect of processing sensory information (Pearson et al., 2015). Specifically, when doing this during mental imagery the sensory information is being processed in a way that will cause the person to deeply understand and remember how it felt to perform an action while they were visualizing it. Knowing that these parts of the brain that are active can assist in fully understanding the actions of the brain, could aid a sport psychologist or coach in using the correct techniques when working with their players.
People who have shown to have strong mental imagery skills are able to use them to perform visual working memory tasks (Pearson et al., 2015). Working memory is part of the hippocampus and its function is to receive stimulation and transfer it into short-term memory for the brain to begin processing. It is important for this to be activated during mental imagery because it is the first step in the processing of this perceptual information getting moved into long-term memory. Once the information makes it into long-term memory, a person is able to recall the information whenever it is needed. Meaning, if the information being processed during mental imagery is able to be transferred into long-term memory the athletes using this technique will be able to recall the information they were visualizing while they are performing.
Researchers have found that athletes using mental imagery as a training tool have gained the ability to believe, give themselves confidence, focus, and perform to the best of their abilities (Amasiatu, 2013). There was also another researcher who found that visualization positively affects motor performance (Hale, 1994). Since motor performance is someone’s ability to perform a physical task, a positive influence on it means that the tasks will be performed at a higher level. This is important in sports because in order to be successful, an athlete needs to perform their skills at the highest level possible.
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This specific study was done to see the effects internal and external imagery had on the performance of athletes. Internal imagery is imagery within one’s self and external imagery involves another person guiding someone through their experience and showing them what they look like while performing the action. This group of athletes were asked to complete an imagery questionnaire and were evaluated on a sports performance scale. They were evaluated over a certain period of time and the results showed there was a strong positive correlation between both internal and external imagery. The type of imagery that showed the greatest response were the ones that included all of the sensory experiences, visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and olfactory targets. The sports that required physical and mental skill were showing the strongest results when internal and external imagery were being incorporated into the session (Parnabas et al., 2015). This study continues to confirm the idea that mental imagery has a major impact on sports performance and it also gives a few examples on what was working best for the athletes.
There are a few specific techniques that are being used by Sports Psychologists to aid their athletes in participating in mental imagery. The first one is known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is a way to reduce anxiety within the athletes through imaginal therapy. The athletes are asked to imagine the fearful situations that cause them anxiety multiple times over a certain period of time. This is supposed to make the athlete feel more comfortable in the anxiety filled situation, which will eventually cause a reduction in that anxiety feeling and maybe even go away (Pearson et al., 2015). Once they are more comfortable, they will be able to perform better because they are no longer playing in a state of fear.
Another major technique being used is imagery rescripting, which is used to change imagery information into something positive. An example of this within athletics would be changing an athlete from thinking about a situation and remembering themselves performing badly into a learning situation where they will then think of themselves in the same situation performing efficiently (Pearson et al., 2015). They do this by having the athlete think and explain the experience in which they performed negatively multiple times. Once they are comfortable thinking and talking about this situation, they then image themselves in the same situation but with a different outcome. The outcome will have them achieving the goal they were looking for and being successful in the, once negative, situation. This technique changes the way an athlete thinks about themselves and can help them build confidence and a positive self-perception.
This next mental imagery technique is used on injured athletes. Its purpose is to help them relax and clear their minds of negative thought regarding the injury. It has been seen to improve pain management along with anxiety about returning to sport. The best results have been seen when the athlete uses mental imagery before participating in rehabilitation exercises because it helps them stay focused and motivated through long and painful exercises. The athletes are asked to close their eyes and envision themselves fully healed and playing. At this time, they remove all the negative thought and energy they have towards their injury and returning to play. They simply just think about themselves performing to the best of their abilities because it helps relax their muscles and slow their heart rate (Nippert & Smith, 2008). It is important for injured athletes to use this technique because in order to fully recover from an injury they must first heal mentally before they can physically allow themselves to get to where they were before.
One last technique that is widely used across athletics is known as mental rehearsal, which is used to increase the quality of one’s performance and understand how to deal with different pressures of competition. This is a way an athlete can improve their skills, patterns of movement, and follow different motor sequences. They do this by first having the person express what their target goal or activity is that they are trying to improve. Once they have this, they close their eyes and image all of the actions they must do in order to achieve that goal. They also imagine their engagement while they are performing certain skills (Jones & Stuth, 1997). They repeat this type of imagery numerous times per session and throughout their days and weeks. Consistency shows the best results because the working memory is constantly being activated.
In conclusion, mental imagery has many positive effects on the brain and people are using it often because it helps with focus, engagement, and performance. The benefits of imagery are especially prominent in the athletic field because it can help athletes highly improve their performance. This is because the brain activates the working memory and the information being experienced in the imagery session is working to move into long-term memory. This is particularly important for athletes because they are constantly learning new skills to strengthen their performance. It takes a lot of practice for a skill to be properly used in a competition. Since imagery helps move information to long-term memory, then athletes can improve their skills more quickly because they will be able to remember and recall them more easily. Sports Psychologists have started using many techniques to help their athletes in different situations. Whether it be anxiety management, skill performance, pain management, or rehabilitation there is a technique used for each athlete to reach their goals.
Sources:
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