A registered report with a single blind procedure to examine the effect of attentional focus and imagery dominance on dart throwing.

External focus of attention (EFOA) has been shown to improve motor performance relative to internal focus of attention (IFOA). Recently, studies have shown that this attentional focus effect may depend upon an individual difference (i.e., motor imagery): Those with a higher ability to visualize movements benefited more from EFOA, and those with a higher ability to feel movements benefited more from IFOA. However, inconsistent findings exist, potentially due to underpowered studies with various potential biases. Thus, leveraging a registered report and single-blind procedure, we will examine the effect of EFOA and IFOA on dart-throwing performance and how the attentional focus could be altered based on individuals' imagery dominance. Participants will complete a dart-throw task with EFOA and IFOA. Then, participants will complete practice trials with no attentional focus, which will be followed by another set of performance trials with EFOA and IFOA. This study will examine whether the effect of attentional focus instruction will persist in a single-blind study and explore its effect on imagery dominance.

Neurofeedback training and motor learning: the enhanced sensorimotor rhythm protocol is better or the suppressed alpha or the suppressed mu?

A large number of previous studies have examined how different neurofeedback-based techniques may influence motor learning. However, only a few studies attempted to compare the effects of these different techniques on motor learning. Therefore, the present study attempts to examine the effects of neurofeedback training on motor learning in novice golfers, using three protocols, namely enhanced sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) at Cz, suppressed alpha waves at Fz, and suppressed mu waves at Cz. The participants were 64 adults (32 females; mean age = 22.31 ± 2.25 years). The study consisted of a pretest stage (day 1), intervention (6 sessions, over two weeks, 3 sessions per week), short-term retention (one day after intervention), and long-term retention (two weeks after intervention); in the pretest and short-term and long-term retention, motor performance for golf putting (12 trials) as well as amplitudes of SMR wave at Cz, alpha at Fz, and Mu at Cz were recorded. During each intervention session, the participants in three neurofeedback groups and a sham group first performed neurofeedback training (enhanced SMR at Cz, suppressed alpha at Fz, and suppressed Mu at Cz) for 20 min. Then, the participants in all groups performed three blocks of 12 trials consisting of golf putting training. The results indicated no difference between the sham and the experimental groups in the acquisition stage, as individuals in all groups experienced similar improvement in putting accuracy. However, in the short-term retention, all the three neurofeedback groups outperformed the sham group, although in the long-term retention, only the SMR group and the Alpha group showed a better performance than the sham group while the Mu group did not exhibit a notably better performance than the sham group. Our results also showed significant variations in the amplitudes of the SMR, alpha, and mu waves depending on the neurofeedback intervention provided, while no significant variation was observed in the sham group. Based on these results, it is recommended that coaches should make further use of enhanced SMR at Cz or suppressed alpha at Fz as their neurofeedback interventions to facilitate longer-term motor learning in golfers.

Gender stereotypes and motor performance: How explicit and implicit stereotypes influence girls standing long jump and anxiety.

OBJECTIVES: Inducing a negative stereotype toward women usually leads to a decrease in women's motor performance. Given that most studies have focused on explicit stereotype induction among adults, the main aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit and implicit gender stereotypes on standing long jump performance in children. The second aim was to investigate the effects of these same manipulations on children's state anxiety. DESIGN: A mixed model design with within-between-subject was used with standing long jump performance and state anxiety as dependent variables. METHOD: Two hundred and four children (Mage = 10.95 years, SDage = 0.85) participated in this study and were randomly assigned, after baseline measurement, into four different groups (i.e., explicit/implicit vs. explicit vs. implicit vs. control). Specifically, participants performed 8 trials of standing long jump (4 trials during the baseline phase and 4 trials during the experimental phase). Children also completed the competitive state Anxiety Inventory at baseline as well as immediately after the trials. RESULTS: For motor performance, children in the explicit/implicit group and in the implicit group were negatively affected by the stereotype manipulation during all trials whereas participants in the explicit group were only negatively impacted during the last two trials. However, regarding state anxiety, children were negatively affected after both explicit only and implicit only manipulations and more significantly after explicit/implicit manipulation. CONCLUSIONS: The present research showed that the explicit and implicit manipulations influenced motor performance differently, but that these two manipulations increased state anxiety in the same way. Moreover, the combination of the explicit and implicit inductions leads to a greater significant negative influence on state anxiety but not motor performance.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on physical activity and mental health status of Iranian people.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious disease caused by acute respiratory syndrome that can negatively impact physical activity as well as mental health of people in the world. Since Iran is one of the countries deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on physical activity behaviours, as well as on mental health indicators among Iranian people. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 335 participants were included (155 males, mean age = 30.06 ± 14.58 years). Participants were selected through the convenience sampling from different parts of Iran mainly through virtual social networks and filled out an electronic questionnaire in the form of Google Form online survey measuring physical activity behaviours (The International Physical Activity Questionnaire; IPAQ; Short Form) and two mental health indicators-self-esteem (Rosenberg self-esteem scale) and social physical anxiety (7-items social physique anxiety scale). The questionnaires were provided to the participants in the spring of 2021 for 15 days and they were asked to answer it in two periods before the outbreak of coronavirus (winter 2020) and the period during the outbreak of coronavirus (spring 2021). RESULTS: The results showed that participants reported significant differences from before to during the pandemic in all three variables of physical activity (significant decreases), self-esteem (significant decreases), and social physical anxiety (significant increases) regardless of participants' gender. The results of correlation test between changes in physical activity and changes in mental health indicators showed that COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted self-esteem and social physical anxiety. However, we have not found any significant association of physical activity's change with social physical anxiety or self-esteem's changes before and during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the present study indicate a detrimental effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical activity and mental health among Iranian people. Public policies aiming to buffer the negative impact on COVID-19 Iranians' health are urgently needed.