The effects of focus of attention when imitating a professional darts player

Abstract

This current study investigates the effects of imitating a video of a professional darts player. Participants were asked to focus on, and then replicate either internal or external factors of a professional darts player’s throw. Contrary to previous research, it was found that participants performed best in the control condition, followed by the internal condition, with the external condition provoking the worst score in study 1. However, when instructions were changed in study 2, the control condition performed better than the external condition, followed by the internal condition: the differences in scores were shown to be significant by a one-way ANOVA F(2,48)= 3.95, p<0.05, showing that participants’ performance was significantly inhibited by both the video and instructions.