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Psychophysiological strategies for enhancing performance through imagery – skin conductance level analysis in guided vs. self-produced imagery
Abstract
Athletes need to achieve their optimal level of arousal for peak performance. Visualization or mental rehearsal (i.e., Imagery) often helps to obtain an appropriate level of activation, which can be detected by monitoring Skin Conductance Level (SCL). However, different types of imagery could elicit different amount of physiological arousal. Therefore, this study aims: (1) to investigate differences in SCL associated with two instructional modalities of imagery (guided vs. self-produced) and six different scripts; (2) to check if SCL could differentiate respondents according to their sport expertise. Thirty participants, aged between 14 and 42 years (M = 22.93; SD = 5.24), with different sport levels took part in the study. Participants listened to each previously recorded script and then were asked to imagine the scene for a minute. During the task, SCL was monitored. We analysed the mean value, variance, slope and number of fluctuations per minute of the electrodermal signal. Unsupervised machine learning models were used for measuring the resemblance of the signal. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for distinguishing guided and self-produced imagery, and The Mann–Whitney U test was used for distinguishing results of different level athletes. We discovered that among others, self-produced imagery generates lower SCL, higher variance, and a higher number of fluctuations compared to guided imagery. Moreover, we found similarities of the SCL signal among the groups of athletes (i.e. expertise level). From a practical point of view, our findings suggest that different imagery instructional modalities can be implemented for specific purposes of mental preparation.
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Authors (10)
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Dagmara Budnik-Przybylska
- Uniwersytet Gdański
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Maria Kaźmierczak
- Uniwersytet Gdański
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Jacek Przybylski
- Uniwersytet Gdański
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Adrian Kastrau mgr inż.
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Selenia di Fronso
- University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara
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Maurizio Bertollo
- University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara
Cite as
Full text
- Publication version
- Accepted or Published Version
- DOI:
- Digital Object Identifier (open in new tab) 10.1038/s41598-024-55743-w
- License
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Details
- Category:
- Articles
- Type:
- artykuły w czasopismach dostępnych w wersji elektronicznej [także online]
- Published in:
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Scientific Reports
ISSN: 2045-2322 - Language:
- English
- Publication year:
- 2024
- Bibliographic description:
- Budnik-Przybylska D., Syty P., Kaźmierczak M., Przybylski J., Doliński Ł., Łabuda M., Jasik P., Kastrau A., di Fronso S., Bertollo M., Psychophysiological strategies for enhancing performance through imagery – skin conductance level analysis in guided vs. self-produced imagery, Scientific Reports, 2024,10.1038/s41598-024-55743-w
- DOI:
- Digital Object Identifier (open in new tab) 10.1038/s41598-024-55743-w
- Sources of funding:
-
- IDUB
- Verified by:
- Gdańsk University of Technology
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