Vividly imagining a performance is claimed to improve it in much the way physical practice does.
Two literatures point in opposite directions. Imagining the process of a known movement measurably improves it. Imagining the successful outcome, which is what the popular version prescribes, has been found to reduce energy and achievement, apparently by supplying some of the satisfaction in advance. The distinction between process and outcome imagery is the whole of it.
In practice
- A gymnast who rehearses the routine in her head improves; one who imagines the medal does not.
- A team that vividly pictures the launch party ships later than one that walks through the failure modes.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is that imagining a movement activates much of the same motor representation as performing it, so rehearsal refines an existing pattern. Imagining a successful outcome does something different, since it can substitute for the effort rather than prepare it.
- In its favour
- Motor imagery research finds real benefits for well-learned physical skills, smaller than physical practice and useful alongside it.
- Against it
- Imagining outcomes rather than processes has been found in experiments to reduce effort and attainment, so the popular version of the advice points the wrong way, and the evidence offered for it is testimonial.
- Standing
- Motor imagery research does find benefits for well-learned physical skills, smaller than physical practice and not a substitute for it. Experiments on outcome fantasy find it reduces effort, which runs against the stronger self-help version that visualising outcomes produces them.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Moralists, aphorists and the self-help tradition