The automaticity of complex motor skill learning as a function of attentional focus

By Gabriele Wulf, Nancy McNevin, C. Shea. The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 2001

1,177 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0c411121b4ee24fadcf3bc41ca984ce6b1615850

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Citations in the corpus

Principles of motor learning in treatment of motor speech disorders. (2008, background): “Wulf et al. (2001) provided evidence for more automatic processing with external than with internal focus by showing that participants’ reaction times to a secondary task were faster when performing a primary (balance) task with an external focus than with an internal focus.”
Increases in Jump-and-Reach Height through an External Focus of Attention (2007, background): “While focusing on one’s movements when performing a motor skill results in a relatively conscious type of control, thus constraining the motor system, directing attention to the movement effect is assumed to promote a more automatic mode of control ("constrained action hypothesis"; [2, 5, 19]).”
Effects of Attentional Focus on Skilled Performance in Golf (2009, positive): “The results outlined above are supportive of a constrained action hypothesis interpretation (Wulf et al., 2001) because performance was impaired in the internal focus condition and enhanced in the distal external focus condition.”
Simply distracting learners is not enough: More evidence for the learning benefits of an external focus of attention (2003, result): “Recent results (38) support the view that an external focus promotes the utilization of more automatic control processes than an internal focus does.”
An External Focus of Attention Results in Greater Swimming Speed (2010, background): “Support for this view comes from findings showing reduced probe reaction times or attentional demands [12], and higher-frequency, reflex-based (i.”
External focus of attention and autonomy support have additive benefits for motor performance in children (2017, background): “For instance, increased automaticity with an external compared to an internal focus has been demonstrated by reduced attentional demands or enhanced secondary-task performance (e.g., Kal, van der Kamp, & Houdijk, 2013; Wulf et al., 2001).”
Does the Attentional Focus Adopted by Swimmers Affect Their Performance? (2011, background): “In this case, the control condition resulted in a higher frequency of postural adjustments – indicative of greater automaticity [14, 15] – than both external focus (“focus on keeping the disk still”) and internal focus conditions (“focus on keeping your feet still”).”
Quiet Eye Training: Effects on Learning and Performance Under Pressure (2010, background): “Indeed, both Singer and Wulf et al. (2001) explicitly recommend an external focus of attention during execution to help improve learning and maintain performance (see Singer, 2000, 2002; Wulf, 2007, for reviews).”
Focus of Attention Affects Performance of Motor Skills in Music (2011, background): “Additionally, those in the external focus group showed more frequent balance adjustments and adjustments of smaller magnitude, indicating greater use of automatic processes that implement quicker and more refined movements (Wulf et al., 2001).”
The Importance of Temporal Structure and Rhythm for the Optimum Performance of Motor Skills: A New Focus for Practitioners of Sport Psychology (2009, background): “It should be noted that the use of external cues over an internal focus has been demonstrated to be superior, at least in motor learning contexts ( Wulf, McNevin, & Shea, 2001 ).”
Principles derived from the study of simple skills do not generalize to complex skill learning (2002, result): “Recent results by Wulf, McNevin, and Shea (2001) support this view.”
Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (2011, neutral): “Much of the feedback research, however, has not been conducted in educational learning environments, but instead in laboratories with novel tasks in which reaction time, for example, is used as a measure of attentional demand (Wulf, McNevin, & Shea, 2001).”
The effects of attentional focusing strategies on novice dart throwing performance and Their task experiences (2007, background): “…is given over what the performer is attempting to focus upon A limitation to the analysis of these findings is the simplistic nature of the scoring system As suggested by Wulf et al (2001) and also Reeve, Fischman, Christina, and Cauraugh (1994), this simple assessment may miss vital clues…”