Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of attentional focus and cognitive-load on motor performance, quiet-eye-duration, and pupil dilation. 18 participants completed a dart throwing task under four conditions, internal or external focus with high or low cognitive-load. Cognitive-load was created by a secondary tone detection task. During each trial participants pupil size and eye movements were recorded along with accuracy data of the dart throw. Results revealed that decreased cognitive-load increased accuracy while high load increased pupil size (p's < 0.05). An external focus resulted in the greatest accuracy while an external focus with high cognitive-load resulted in the longest quiet-eye-durations (p's < 0.05). Based on these findings an increase in pupil size is related to greater cognitive-load but doesn't explain the improvement in task performance. Likewise, an external focus of attention improved performance but was not strongly related to quiet-eye-duration. Results are further discussed in the article.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103015 |
| Pages (from-to) | 103015 |
| Journal | Human Movement Science |
| Volume | 86 |
| Early online date | 12 Oct 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2022 |
Keywords
- focus of attention
- Gaze control
- pupillometry
- Cognitive Load
- Motor Control