Journal of Sports and Motor Development and Learning

Abstract Introduction: A warm-up decrement is a temporary and fleeting decrease in an individual's performance that occurs following a short-term rest period. It can be reduced by practicing cognitive techniques during the rest period. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of overt and covert self-talk on the warm-up decrement of indirect billiards.
Methods: 70 participants were divided into seven homogeneous groups of 10 based on their indirect billiards hit scores in the pretest, including overt instructional self-talk, covert instructional self-talk, overt motivational self-talk, covert motivational self-talk, overt irrelevant self-talk, covert irrelevant self-talk, and control groups. They performed the task for 15 minutes, and their final score of 10 performances was recorded. Then they rested for 5 minutes, and then performed 10 performances. During the rest period, the participants performed self-talk related to their group. And the same steps were repeated once again with a 2-minute rest interval.
Results: The obtained scores were analyzed by combined analysis of variance (7x2) at a significance level of 0.05, and Bonferroni post hoc test was used to determine the differences between the groups at different stages. The results showed that the instructional and motivational self-talk groups (overt and covert) performed better than the unrelated self-talk and control groups, and their difference was significant.
Conclusion: According to the research results, athletes can use overt and covert instructional and motivational self-talk to reduce warm-up decrement during rest periods.

Abstract .
Introduction: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of strategic self-talk on volleyball players' performance and visual attention.
Methods: This quasi-experimental research employed a pre-test/post-test design with a control group. Participants included 54 novice male volleyball players selected via convenience sampling. They were randomly assigned into five groups: 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 was conducted over 12 weeks, with three sessions per week. In both the pre-test and post-test phases, serving scores were recorded by the researcher, and participants' gaze behavior was measured using an eye tracker while performing a simple volleyball serve task. Data were analyzed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Bonferroni post-hoc tests.
Results: The findings revealed that strategic self-talk had a significant effect on simple serve performance (P=0.0001) and quiet eye duration (P=0.0001). Bonferroni post-hoc tests indicated that instructional self-talk improved motor performance and increased quiet eye duration. Combined self-talk groups (instructional-motivational and motivational-instructional) also exhibited enhanced motor performance and prolonged quiet eye duration. However, motivational self-talk alone had no significant effect on motor performance and quiet eye duration.
Conclusion: The results underscore the importance of instructional self-talk in enhancing performance and visual attention in novice volleyball players, supporting the attentional mechanisms underlying self-talk.

Abstract Self-talk is one of the psychological factors influencing the improvement and success of motor performance. The present research aimed to investigate the effect of motivational self-talk on bimanual coordination of university students. 24 students of physical education (12 females and 12 males, mean age = 22.62 and SD = 2.081) were selected by convenience sampling method. After the pretest, subjects were divided into two homogeneous groups of motivational self-talk and no self-talk using bimanual coordination tester. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics including independent t test and paired t test were used at 0.05 significance level. Results showed that self-talk improved the coordination performance significantly (p < 0.05). Also, the female group had a significantly better precision in bimanual coordination (p < 0.05) and the male group had a significantly better speed in bimanual coordination (p < 0.05). But, there was a significant difference between boys and girls in self-talk group in the posttest (p < 0.05). According to these findings, it is suggested that motivational self-talk should be used to improve and promote bimanual coordination performance.

Abstract  
The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties and to normalize Persian version of the Self Talk Questionnaire. 384 male and female athletes in three skill levels and 10 sport fields (team and individual) were selected and completed the Persian version of the Self Talk Questionnaire. At first, face validity of this questionnaire was confirmed with translation-back translation method. For construct validity, internal constancy and temporal stability, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach alpha coefficient and intra-class correlation coefficient were used respectively. The results showed acceptable fit of the 11-item model of Self Talk Questionnaire; fit index (RMSEA, 0.07; CFI, 0.98 & TLI, 0.97), internal consistency (motivational, 0.70; cognitive, 0.70 & total, 0.73) and temporal stability (motivational, 0.89; cognitive, 0.92 & total, 0.89) showed good reliability and validity of the Persian version of this questionnaire. These findings indicated good validity and reliability for the Persian version of Self Talk Questionnaire. Therefore, the Persian version of Self Talk Questionnaire can be employed as a suitable tool to study and evaluate self talk of Iranian male and female athletes.

Abstract The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of different methods of self-talk (motivational, instructional, and combined) on acquisition and learning of a motor perceptional task (dart) and physical efficacy in female students aged between 13 and 18. 48 female students (mean age 15.46 yr) who were novice at dart throwing voluntarily participated in this study. Participants were divided into 4 groups including motivational self-talk, instructional self-talk, motivational-instructional self-talk and physical practice (12 students in each group) following an initial instructional session and pretest. The intervention included 10 sessions of acquisition, 2 sessions of retention test and one session of transfer test. One-way ANOVA and ANOVA with repeated measures were used to analyze data. Results showed that combined (motivational-instructional) and the instructional self-talk groups improved dart throwing performance in acquisition, immediate and delayed retention sessions in 13-18-year-old students compared with the motivational self-talk and physical exercise groups. Instructional self-talk group showed the best performance in transfer test while the other three groups showed almost similar performances. The results also showed that different interventions had no significant effects on physical self-efficacy of the participants.

Abstract The self-talk is one of psychological interventions that can be effective on improving and success in the motor performance and sport performance. So, the aim of the present study was to investigation effectiveness the motivational self-talkon secondary task performance (discrimination reaction time). 30 subjects have participated of the 160 students studying at the undergraduate from faculty of physical education and sport science in University of Tehran. They were divided randomly into two control and experimental groups. The intervention was conducted in two sessions per day and each session lasted one minute. The first primary task for the intervention group was walking on the treadmill with a slow speed whereas secondary task (discrimination reaction time), was performed in 10 attempts. The process was performed for the second order in the same manner with the difference that the experimental group performed motivational self-talk 15 seconds before the secondary task performance.Control group was performed test without intervention.The result of paired samples t-test showed that motivational self-talk in experimental group leads to a significant decrement in discrimination reaction time (P=0.001). Also, the result of Mann-Whitney U showed that reaction time in the experimental group decrease than control group significantly (P=0.002).          

Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the effect of motivational self-talk as one of the psychological strategies. Motivational self-talk is a type of self-talk that appears to improve performance and control arousal level through increased drive and effort and positive motivation in performance. This study tried to investigate the effect of motivational self-talk on performance of simple and complex skills. Using a quasi-experimental method, 42 physical education students (20-25 years old who had passed basketball 1 and 2 units) were selected to participate in this study. Then, they were randomly divided into two equal groups (experimental and control) and completed a 15-minute warm-up and task practice. Firstly, the subjects performed a pre-test (without self-talk) including basketball passing test (AAHPERD, 1996) as simple skill and basketball passing test (AAHPERD, 1984) as complex skill. Then, the participants performed a post-test using self-talk with the above tests. Statistical analysis was performed using independent t test and paired sample t test by SPSS 11.5 at ??0.05. The results showed no significant difference between experimental and control groups in pre-test in the performance of simple (P=0.703) and complex (P=0.512) skills so both group were at the same level of performance. Motivational self-talk improved the simple skill in the experimental group (P=0.001). A significant difference (in favour of experimental group) was observed in the improvement of the simple skill in the post-test of both groups (P=0.004). Also, motivational self-talk improved the performance of complex skill in the experimental group (P=0.001). A significant difference (in favour of experimental group) was observed in the improvement of the complex skill in the post-test of both groups (P=0.048). The mean difference in the simple task (? x =0.94) and in the complex task (? x =0.48) between the two groups showed that the mean difference of simple skill was higher than the complex skill. Generally, the results showed that motivational self-talk improve the performance of both skills while it influenced simple skill more than complex skill.