Therefore, during competition athletes can experience various mental states, even when performing optimally, in different conditions and with a different level of cognitive control (Bortoli et al., 2012 Robazza et al., 2016 Ruiz et al., 2020). In the sports domain, mental training techniques including imagery serve to improve athletes’ optimal performance (Morris et al., 2005 Cumming and Williams, 2012 Munroe-Chandler and Guerrero, 2017), which has been usually associated with the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990 Jackson and Roberts, 1992 Jackson et al., 1998, 2001). Imagery can serve cognitive and motivation functions and each at a general or specific level (Paivio, 1985 Hall et al., 1998). Images could be recalled from memory or could be a novel combination of stimuli (Pearson et al., 2015). Imagery is a multisensorial mental representation of the image of actions (or objects and situations), without an actual experience and without appropriate sensory input (White and Hardy, 1998 Kosslyn, 2005). Practical mental training recommendations are presented. Results are discussed in light of the neural efficiency hypothesis as a marker of optimal performance and transient hypofrontality as a marker of flow state.
Our findings indicate that guided imagery might induce higher high alpha and SMR (usually associated with selective attention), whereas self-produced imagery might facilitate higher low alpha (associated with global resting state and relaxation). During the task, brain waves were monitored using EEG (32-channel g. The subject listened to each previously recorded script taken from two existing questionnaires concerning imagery ability in sport and then was asked to imagine the scene for a minute. self-produced) and different scripts (e.g., training or competition environment) could differently involve brain activity. According to the expert-performance approach, we took an idiosyncratic perspective analyzing the mental imagery of an experienced two-time Olympic athlete to verify whether different instructional modalities of imagery (i.e., guided vs. self-produced) using various sports-related scripts.
The purpose of the current study was to examine the cortical correlates of imagery depending on instructional modality (guided vs.
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