Abstract
Currently, there is debate in the sport science literature about how attention should be directed for experts and novices when performing skilled motor acts. For instance, cross-sectional studies comparing experts to novices, suggest that experts suffer less from dual-task interference whereas novices benefit more from skill focused attention. However, skill-focused attention can be directed either externally (to the goal of the task) or internally (to the mechanics of the movement itself). The present experiment explored the effects of internal/external skill focused attention in a dart-throwing task using novice subjects. Furthermore, subjects trained and tested with either 0, 1, or 2 kg of weight added below the wrist to change the inertial dynamics of the throwing arm. In these novice subjects there was an advantage of externally focused attention in both accuracy and precision. Furthermore, the benefit of an external focus of attention was the same for familiar limb dynamics (0 kg) and novel limb dynamics (1 & 2 kgs). Thus, these data support the use of external skill focused attention for novice subjects.
