Introduction Performers tend to direct their attention to themselves under stress or pressure (Eysenck, 1992). Such self-focused attention interrupts the flow of movement execution and therefore degrades skill performance (Liao & Masters, 2002). The present study was designed to examine the effects of external and internal attentional focus on acquisition and transfer performance of a sport skill under psychological pressure. Methods The participants of study were 76 male and female students from Springfield College and had little experience in playing field or floor hockey. The task of the study involved dribbling and shooting a floor hockey ball to a target marked on the wall. The study consisted of a pretest, an acquisition phase, and a transfer test. Participants were volunteered to participate in the study and randomly assigned into one of the four groups with an equal number of males (n=12) and females (n=7) in each group: internal focus, external focus, movement effect focus, and control. On the pretest, participants were asked to perform 10 trials of the shooting task from a distance of 10 yards without augmented feedback. During the acquisition phase, participants observed a skillful demonstration of the shooting skill and then performed the skill under their respective attentional focus conditions for 40 trials. Participants in the internal focus group were instructed to direct their attention the shooting movements whereas those in the external focus group were asked to focus their attention on the ball. Participants in the movement effect group were instructed to pay attention to the effect of shooting movements (speed and direction of the driven ball). Participants in the control group, however, were not given any instructions regarding attentional focus. Each participant in the experimental groups was required to rate his or her attention based on a 5-point scale. To induce psychological stress for the participant, a video camera was set up at angle of 30 degrees to the participant as he or she faced the target. In addition, participants were asked to perform the skill in a group setting and informed of evaluation of their shooting performance from experts in field hockey. Following the acquisition trials, a transfer test which involved in performing the dribbling and shooting task for 10 trials from a distance of 15 yards was administered to all the participants. Results A 4 x 2 (Group x Test) ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor revealed a significant Group x Test interaction effect (p<.05). Follow-up analyses indicated that no group differences were found on the pretest. However, movement effect group had significantly (p<.05) higher performance accuracy than the internal focus group on the transfer test. No group differences were found on the acquisition performance. Discussion/Conclusions Participants who focused on movement effect during the acquisition trials demonstrated superior transfer performance of the hockey shooting skill to those who focused on their own movements. The finding of the present study provides evidence for the detrimental effect of self-focused attention on skill learning under psychological stress and suggests that focusing on movement effect during skill acquisition helps performers appropriately allocate information processing resources and thus enhances their skill learning.
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