Mind Over Mistakes: Positive and Negative Mental Imagery and Their Effects on Motor Performance

Abstract

Does reviewing and imagining past failures enhance performance more than reviewing and imagining past successes? This thesis examines the relationship between performance review, positive and negative mental imagery, and its effects on motor performance. Drawing from research on feedback learning theories and athlete video, it looks into how reviewing past performances can lead to simulation, which presumably eventually has effects on motor performance. There has been a wide range of studies on mental imagery as a whole and how it is used in so many aspects of brain function, but the extent of how negative and positive imagery affects motor performance is limited. To determine the effects of film review and positive and negative mental imagery, a qualitative questionnaire and quantitative experiment of an arbitrary motor task is used to accomplish the goal of this experiment. This dual approach experiment provides insight into real life scenarios and data from a simple motor task. In all, the study looks to determine how positive and negative mental imagery, influenced by reviewing film on past performance, affects motor performance within people. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the very limited understanding of the benefits of negative mental imagery enhancement on motor performance through error learning.