Is External Focus of Attention a Good Thing?

In this episode, I’m joined by Henrik Herrebroden. Henrik is a sport psychologist and PhD fellow at the University of Oslo. His area of interest is in mental effort and elite performance.

We talk about a fascinating paper in which Henrik discusses the benefits of both external and internal focus of attention in motor learning and performance. In the paper Henrik analyses the idea that an external focus is superior to an internal focus, and argues that motor performers will benefit from instructional cues that guide attention toward task-relevant information, regardless of whether the cues are internal or external. 

The paper is entitled “Motor Performers Need Task-relevant Information: Proposing an Alternative Mechanism for the Attentional Focus Effect”

And you can find it here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00222895.2022.2122920