Effects of Attentional Focus and Task Difficulty on Dart Throwing

• Main Authors: Ke-Shin Huang, 黃可欣
• Other Authors: Ti-Yu Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27039930819637314130

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 運動健康研究所 === 101 === This study uses internal and external focus of attention instructions, and dart throwing at different distances as a measure of task difficulty to observe the difference in darts score and kinematics parameters. Study participants were 15 male college students, who were all healthy and have not received darts training, the average age was 21.73 ± 2.49 years. Based on within-subjects design, every participant under both internal and external focus of attention instruction threw darts at target distances of 2.37 meters and 3.56 meters. The kinematic parameters were collected by the VICON 3D Motion Capture System, while the darts score was simultaneously recorded. The resulting data, organized using a 2 (task difficulty)  2 (focus of attention) study design, was statistically analyzed using two-way ANOVA, with an alpha level of .05. The results showed that only the elbow’s action time and the finger’s maximum speed have a significant interaction effect with task difficulty and focus of attention. The main factor affecting elbow movement time was focus of attention, with elbow movement time being longer with internal focus of attention than with external focus of attention, regardless of the throwing distance; the main factor affecting the finger’s maximum speed was distance, with maximum speed at 3.56 meters being greater than at 2.37 meters. Exploring the other kinematic parameters found that energy consumption for darts throwing is higher at 3.56 meters than at 2.37 meters; in addition, energy consumption was higher with internal focus of attention than with external focus of attention. Furthermore, the results of the darts scores showed that there was no interaction between task difficulty and focus of attention. However, dart scores were affected by both task difficulty and focus of attention with scores at 2.37 meters being higher than at 3.56 meters and scores with external focus of attention being higher than with internal focus. Based on these results, it is readily seen that task difficulty will affect dart throwing performance, and furthermore, external focus of attention will not only result in better dart scores, but the energy consumption is also less.