The effects of different times of mental practice during the acquisition of a perceptual motor skill

Theorists and researchers of mental practice disagree on the optimal duration of mental practice sessions. I.e., (a) Twining (1949) suggested less than 5 minutes was best, (b) Shick (1970) suggested that 3 minutes Is better than 1 minute, and (c) Feltz and Landers (1983) suggested that less than 1 minute or between 15 and 25 minutes was best. The present study examined the relative effects of 45 seconds and 2 minutes of mental practice on the acquisition of a dart throwing task. Sixty male students served as subjects for this study. Prior to the first day of testing, each subject was randomly assigned to one of four practice conditions: (a) 45 seconds mental practice, (b) 2 minutes mental practice, (c) 45 seconds controlled activity (I.e., performing a word find puzzle), and (d) 2 minutes controlled activity (I.e., performing a word find puzzle). All subjects performed a combination of either mental practice and physical practice or a distracting task and physical practice. Subjects began the experiment by physically throwing four sets of six darts, followed by their respective experimental procedure for the designated time. Subjects continued this sequence until a total of 16 sets of six darts were thrown and three mental practice trials or controlled activity sessions were completed.

The mean dart throwing score for each of the four practice blocks was calculated. A 2 x 2 x 4 (group x time x blocks) repeated measures design analysis of variance was performed on the data. Subjects were nested In group and time.

The results indicated that 45 seconds of mental practice was not significantly superior to 2 minutes of mental practice in facilitating the acquisition of a dart throwing task (p > ,05). The results also revealed: (a) that 45 seconds of mental practice was not significantly superior to 45 seconds of a controlled activity in the acquisition of a dart throwing task, and (b) there were no significant differences in performance on a dart throwing task between a group receiving 2 minutes of mental practice and a group performing a controlled activity for 2 minutes.

It was concluded under the conditions of the present study that neither of the experimental mental practice lengths (i.e., 45 seconds and 2 minutes) significantly enhanced the acquisition of a dart throwing task. It was further concluded that mental practice, for the two stated lengths (i.e., 45 seconds and 2 minutes), did not result in significantly superior dart throwing performance when compared to no practice (i.e., performing a word find puzzle) for comparable lengths of time.