Instruções de foco de atenção para a automatização da ação na aprendizagem de uma habilidade manipulativa

Abstract

The purpose was to test the constrained-action hypothesis on the effect of the focus of attention in the automation of the action. Thirty subjects participated (± 24.9 years old), divided into three groups: internal focus of attention (FI, n = 10), external focus of attention (FE, n = 10) and a control group (GC, n = 10). The task was to launch a plastic disc making it slide on the table in order to touch the target or to be as close as possible to it, and parallel to this the participants performed a reaction time task. The participants performed a pretest, followed by an acquisition phase (9 blocks of 10 trials), with a two minutes rest between blocks, a post-test, and after 48 hours, a retention and transfer test. The repeated measures ANOVA (3x4) indicated significant difference only between moments (p