Astireh Hasani; Ali Heirani; Ayoob Sabaghi
Abstract
Introduction: Lifestyle changes and the increasing trend of children's developmental disorders, especially in the field of social interactions have made it necessary to conduct research in this field of study. So the present study aimed to investigate the action-specific perception in the different focus ...
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Introduction: Lifestyle changes and the increasing trend of children's developmental disorders, especially in the field of social interactions have made it necessary to conduct research in this field of study. So the present study aimed to investigate the action-specific perception in the different focus of attention conditions in autistic children.Methods: In a quasi-experimental study, 45 people with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder were identified and randomly divided into three Internal Attention, External Attention, and Control groups (15 people in each group). The participant's task was to throw darts and estimate the target size. After the pre-test, the groups performed the dart-throwing task in 5 blocks of 10 trials. The focus of attention instructions - specific to the experimental groups- were given before each trial, and subjects were asked to estimate the target size before performing the tasks in each block. For this, participants used a circle shape in Microsoft PowerPoint to draw a circle the same size as the darts' target. The next day, retention and transfer tests were performed.Results: The results showed that the Internal Attention group was better than the External Attention and Control groups both in dart-throwing performance in acquisition, retention, and transfer stages and in action-specific perception (P≤0.05).Conclusion: In general, the findings showed that in children with autism spectrum disorder, internal attention leads to better performance and learning than external attention. Therefore coaches and physical education teachers who work with these children should emphasize on benefits of internal focus of attention when designing training sessions.
Fatemeh Mirakhori; Elahe Arabameri; Fazlolah Bagherzadeh; Rasool Hemayattalab
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of attentional focus instructions on spatial memory in children.Thirty girl students with the mean age from 7 to 12 years were selected by convenience sampling from elementary schools in Tehran. Participants were randomly divided into three attentional ...
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The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of attentional focus instructions on spatial memory in children.Thirty girl students with the mean age from 7 to 12 years were selected by convenience sampling from elementary schools in Tehran. Participants were randomly divided into three attentional focus groups (internal, external, control). Participants in the internal focus group were asked to focus their attention on the movements of their hand, whereas participants in the external focus group were asked to focus their attention to the movement path and target. Control group participants received no focus instructions. Acquisition phase lasted five consecutive days. The instrument used for measuring spatial memory was linear movement apparatus (LM-01 model). Analysis of Covariance and Bonferoni tests were used at p
Seyed Mohammadreza Mousavi; Nahid Shetab Boushehri; Rasool Abedanzadeh
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of external focus of attention instruction and autonomy support on learning of an aiming task in mentally retarded children. Therefore, 48 children (age range: 10-14 years, mean age 11.81+1.2 years) were selected from all mentally retarded children ...
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The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of external focus of attention instruction and autonomy support on learning of an aiming task in mentally retarded children. Therefore, 48 children (age range: 10-14 years, mean age 11.81+1.2 years) were selected from all mentally retarded children of Ahvaz city by convenient sampling method. Participants performed 10 trials as a pretest and according to their scores of the pretest, they were assigned to four groups: external attention, autonomy support, external attention-autonomy support and control. The task consisted of throwing 100-gram beanbags into a goal that was mounted at a distance of 2 meters from the participants on the wall. Participants performed 40 trials including 5 blocks, 8 trials each block in the acquisition phase. 10 minutes after the last acquisition block, the participants performed 10 trials as the posttest. 48 hours after the acquisition phase, retention test (10 trials) was performed to examine the learning effects of the participants under the same conditions as the pretest. The data were analyzed by mix ANOVA 2×2×5 in the acquisition phase and two-way ANOVA 2×2 in the retention phase with SPSS22 at significance level of P≤0.05. The results showed that all four groups had a significant improvement in their performance during the practice blocks. The external attention+autonomy support group gained the best scores in the acquisition phase (P≤0.05). The external attention+ autonomy support group presented the greatest performance in the retention test (P≤0.05). Therefore, it is suggested that a combination of autonomy support and external attention should be used to improve the performance and learning of aiming in mentally retarded children.
Massoumeh Ali Asghari Toyeh; Mozhgan Memarmoghaddam; Mitra Mohammadi
Abstract
One of the topics of interest to motor behavior researchers is to examine the different effects of attention strategies on motor behavior and brain activity.The aim of this study was to investigate the role of attention instructions on alpha and theta wave variations and the accuracy of dart throwing. ...
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One of the topics of interest to motor behavior researchers is to examine the different effects of attention strategies on motor behavior and brain activity.The aim of this study was to investigate the role of attention instructions on alpha and theta wave variations and the accuracy of dart throwing. 20 male students novice in dart (age range 19-22 years old) were voluntarily selected. This study was application. Firstly, the participants performed 10 attempts of dart throwing in the baseline (no attention instructions). Then, as a counterbalance, 20 practice attempts were performed in both the external and internal attention strategies. In all attempts, the alpha and theta brain waves of the subjects were recorded using biofeedback device and the radial error formula was used to measure accuracy. The data were analyzed by in-group variance analysis with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc test at a significance level of 0.05. The results showed that the external attention strategy increased the accuracy of the dart throwing (P=0.0001), increased alpha wavelength (P=0.01) and reduced theta wave (P=0.01) in comparison with the internal attention strategy. These findings showed the need to use attention instructions particularly external attention in targeting skill task at a beginner level; therefore, it is suggested that coaches should use external attention strategy to improve the accuracy and intelligence of the brain in beginners.
Saeed Arsham; Arash Saidi; Farhad Ghadiri
Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the interactive effect of caffeine and attention focus on the postural stability in subjects with different levels of physical activity. 20 male students were divided into two equal groups (physically active and inactive) by the international physical activity questionnaire. ...
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The aim of this study was to determine the interactive effect of caffeine and attention focus on the postural stability in subjects with different levels of physical activity. 20 male students were divided into two equal groups (physically active and inactive) by the international physical activity questionnaire. Their postural sways were gathered from a force plate system during two 30-second trials with a 1-minute rest interval with no interventions in the pretest and in internal attention focus (attention to the lower extremity) and external attention focus (attention to a point on the front wall) conditions. On the second day of the experiment, subjects in both groups received 5 mg of caffeine per kg of body weight and the postural stability test was conducted under internal and external attention focus conditions after 30 minutes. The results of ANOVA with repeated measures at α=0.05 showed significant increases in the postural sways of both groups in internal and external conditions. Also, the caffeine intervention significantly increased the postural sways of both groups in internal and external conditions. Furthermore, active subjects showed less postural sways in different conditions than the inactive group. Regardless of the focus of attention, caffeine causes more postural sways in both groups with different levels of physical activity through affecting the sympathetic system and increased muscle contractions and tremor. In future studies, other factors such as individual differences in response to caffeine intake or its effect on tasks along with postural disturbances should be considered.
Borhanaldin Ghari; Hasan Mohammadzadeh; Jalal Dehghanizadeh
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between performance and the perception of size of target under internal and external attention focus conditions as well as the relationship between the initial perception of the size of target and performance. 70 male students (mean age ...
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The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between performance and the perception of size of target under internal and external attention focus conditions as well as the relationship between the initial perception of the size of target and performance. 70 male students (mean age of 21±1.6 years) voluntarily participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to internal and external attention focus based on the type of attentional instruction. Subjects performed dart throwing task in 20 trials. The target size estimation test was performed before the trials, after the last trial and after the first successful trail. Pearson correlation coefficient was used for data analysis. The results showed a significant and positive relationship between the performance and perception of target size in external focus group. But in internal focus group, a significant relationship between performance and perception of the size of the target was not observed. Also, there was no significant relationship between the initial perception and performance in both groups. It is suggested that the focus of attention can be a mediating factor for action-specific perception phenomenon.
Maryam Lotfi; Jalal Dehghanizade; Fateme Sadat Hosseini
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of focus of attention on learning dart throwing in mentally retarded children.In this quasi-experimental study, 22 mentally retarded boys (age 10-12 years old) were randomly selected according to IQ (50-70) and were assigned to two homogenous attention ...
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The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of focus of attention on learning dart throwing in mentally retarded children.In this quasi-experimental study, 22 mentally retarded boys (age 10-12 years old) were randomly selected according to IQ (50-70) and were assigned to two homogenous attention (internal, external) groups after the pretest and a training session according to the obtained scores, age and IQ. The subjects practiced in 5 blocks and each block 8 throws. Two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures and ANOVA were used to analyze data. In retention phase, both groups increased accuracy in their throwing (P=0.044). Variability (P=0.044) and throwing accuracy (P=0.047) decreased due to the training. In transfer phase, internal focus group could not transfer skill to new conditions while variable group succeeded to transfer their skill to new conditions. Also, external focus group had lower variability (P=0.049) and higher accuracy (P=0.048) than internal focus group. According to the findings, external focus group was able to retain and transfer skills to new situations which confirmed constrained action hypothesis (Wulf et al., 2001) in mentally retarded individuals.
Gholam Hossein Nazemzadegan; Roghayeh Eider
Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the effects of external attention (EA) and internal attention (IA) with & without motivational music training on dynamic balance task. The method was quasi-experimental and the sample involved 60 athletic maile who were volunteers to participate in this study. ...
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The aim of this study was to determine the effects of external attention (EA) and internal attention (IA) with & without motivational music training on dynamic balance task. The method was quasi-experimental and the sample involved 60 athletic maile who were volunteers to participate in this study. After pre-test, Subjects were divided into 5 groups of 12 members randomly. Groups were: IA with music, EA with music, IA without music, EA without music and Control. This research conduct with 3 phase. First, Pre-test. In 2nd, Subjects were doing exercise protocol in 3 consecutive days in phase for groups with music in addition attentional strategies, motivational music play by CD. 3nd was post –test in According to of research design, if music had could significant effect on performance after variable using, then in 4th phase, data can be Analyzed. ANOVA test do not show significant difference among groups. In other words, (EA) and (IA), strategies with / without music cannot affect on balance ability. The significance level in this research was α= 0.05.
Javad Parhizkar Kohneh Oghaz; Mehdi Zarghami; Ahmad Ghotbi Varzaneh; Amirhosein Ghorbani
Abstract
Postural control has an important role in daily activities and motor independence. In recent years, conscious aspects of postural control such as attention and cognitive processes have received attention for balance optimization performance. Therefore, the present study designed to examine the age–related ...
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Postural control has an important role in daily activities and motor independence. In recent years, conscious aspects of postural control such as attention and cognitive processes have received attention for balance optimization performance. Therefore, the present study designed to examine the age–related differences in postural control in the internal and external focus of attention. For this purpose, displacement of the anterior–posterior, middle–lateral and speed of center of pressure (cop), 22 elderly subjects (mean+SD=59.95±2.12 year) and 22 young men (mean+SD=24.16±2.76 year) who were selected from Shahid Chamran University students and staff purposefully and by availability were measured in three 30–second trials in the internal focus and three 30-second trials in external focus using force platform. After the normality of data had been tested with Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the equality of variance had been tested using the Levene test, data were analyzed using multivariable variance analysis, one–way variance analysis and MANOVA. Results showed that postural stability of both groups in external focus was more than internal focus. These results supported limited action hypotheses and conscious processes. Also, in both conditions, young group had more postural stability than the elderly. It seems that the weaker performance of the elderly in both external and internal conditions was due to the effects of aging on sensorimotor systems.
