Hamed Fahimi; Hassan Gharayagh zandi; Fazlallah Bagherzadeh; Ali Moghadamzadeh; Davood Homanian SharifAbadi
Abstract
Introduction: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of strategic self-talk on the performance and visual attention of volleyball players.Methods: The current research was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The participants of the present ...
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Introduction: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of strategic self-talk on the performance and visual attention of volleyball players.Methods: The current research was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The participants of the present study were 54 boy volleyball players, who selected as available. The participants randomly divided into five groups: Strategic self-tlk as instructional self-talk (N=10), motivational self-talk (N=11), instructional-motivational self-talk (N=10), motivational-instructional self-talk (N=11) and control (N=12). The self-talk intervention conducted for 12 weeks and three sessions per week. In pre-test and post-test, while performing the serve task, the serve score were recorded by the researcher and the gaze behavior of the participants was measured by the eye tracker. The collected data were analyzed using analysis of covariance and Bonferroni's post hoc test.Results: The results of the study showed that strategic self-talk has a significant effect on serve performance (P=0.0001) and the quiet eye duration (P=0.0001). The results of the Bonferroni test showed that instructional self-talk increased motor performance and increased the duration of the quiet eye. In addition, the combined groups that have used this instruction have increased motor performance and a longer duration of quiet eye. However, motivational self-talk has no effect on motor performance and the duration of quiet eye.Conclusion: The results obtained in the current research emphasize the importance of instructional self-talk on the performance and visual attention of novice volleyball players and supports the attention mechanism of self-talk.
