Imagery Ability and Imagery Use in Triathletes’ Strategic Mental

Rehearsal Practices

Akihiro Fukunaga

and Fumio Mizuochi

Graduate School of Literature and Social Sciences, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

1 OBJECTIVES

Studies in triathlon research are often seen in the field

of physiology, such as that of Ishihara et al. (1996) on

exercise intensity and estimating energy expenditure

in Olympic-distance triathlons. However, there

appears to be no psychological research available

focusing on mental rehearsal and imagery ability in

triathletes.

A triathlon is a competition demanding a high

level of endurance, being a combination of three

disciplines; swimming, cycling, running, and the

transitions in-between the race components. In

addition, because athletes need to contend with

external factors such as the weather, flow of the tide,

wind direction, and other triathletes, mental rehearsal

may be a factor that could affect competitive

performance. Therefore, strategic practice of an

appropriate type of mental rehearsal may be an

essential part of an athlete’s pre-race psychological

conditioning.

This study explored the relationship between

triathletes’ imagery ability and what types of imagery

they used in their strategic mental rehearsal practices.

2 METHODS

2.1 Participants

A total of 62 members of three university triathlon

teams who had experience participating in a triathlon

participated in the study. The sample consisted of 52

men (mean age: 20.0 ± 4.0 years) and 10 women

(mean age: 20.3 ± 2.7 years).

2.2 Survey Items

 Participant profile

Name, gender, age, years of triathlon experience

 Questions concerning mental rehearsal

Whether they used mental rehearsal; usual imagery

content; when and how often each day; during what

periods; how often during those periods; for what

events; and, when practiced pre-race.

 Japanese Sport Imagery Questionnaire (JSIQ)

We used the JSIQ (Ito, 2013), the Japanese version of

the SIQ developed by Hall et al. (1998), to assess the

athlete’s use of cognitive and motivational imagery.

The JSIQ evaluates the use of types of imagery using

subscales for Motivational Specific (MS), Cognitive

Specific (CS) and Motivational General-Arousal

(MG-M) imagery. The MS subscale assesses use of

imagery associated with specific goals and ideal

outcomes for goal achievement. The CS subscale

assesses use of imagery associated with skill

improvement and perfect execution to develop skills.

And, the MG-M subscale which assess use of imagery

concerning coping with and taking control of

challenging situations to increase confidence.

 Mental Imagery Experience Diagnostic Test

(MIEDT)

This questionnaire was developed by Takano et al.,

(1996). It consists of 21 items to assess four imagery

ability factors: Kinesthetic Sensation, Performance,

Surroundings Visualization, and Emotions.

2.3 Procedures

Based on the participants’ responses to whether they

strategically practiced mental rehearsal, they were

assigned to either a “mental rehearsal” (MR) group or

“no mental rehearsal” (NMR) group. We then used

unpaired t-tests to test for significant differences in

mean scores between these two groups for both the

JSIQ and MIEDT subscales. We further divided the

participants into “high-scoring” and “low-scoring”

groups for each MIEDT subscale according to

whether their scores were above or below the mean.

We then used unpaired t-tests to test for differences

in the mean scores for the JSIQ subscales between

these two MR groups. The significance level was set

at 5%.

Fukunaga, A. and Mizuochi, F..

Imagery Ability and Imagery Use in Triathletes’ Strategic Mental Rehearsal Practices.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Imagery Ability and Imagery Use

in the MR and NMR Groups

A significant difference was found between the MR

and NMR groups in their scores for the JSIQ’s MS

and CS and MG-M subscales with the MR group

being higher for each (Fig. 1). The CS result

suggested that many of the athletes used cognitive-

type imagery in their strategic mental rehearsal

practices. On the other hand, in the free responses to

the question regarding mental rehearsal content there

were no reports of rehearsing corrections in moves or

how to cope/what to do when there was an accident

or when they were overtaken by a competitor, for

which cognitive-type imagery would be effective.

Figure 1: JSIQ subscale scores - MR and NMR groups.

Figure 2: MIEDT subscale scores - MR and NMR groups.

There were also significant differences in the

mean scores for the MR and NMR groups in the

MIEDT’s Performance, Surroundings Visualization,

and Emotions subscales, with the MR group having

higher scores for each. The athletes who strategically

practiced mental rehearsal pre-race appeared to have

higher imagery ability in all aspects except in

Kinesthetic Sensation, for which no significant

difference was shown in the subscale scores. Looking

at Fig. 3, within the MR group, compared to the low-

scoring group for Kinesthetic Sensation, the high-

scoring group had a significantly higher CS subscale

score, showing that many of those participants were

using cognitive-type imagery. In other words,

notwithstanding the fact that athletes able to clearly

imagine kinesthetic sensation tended to frequently

use cognitive type imagery, in these triathletes’

strategic mental rehearsal practices, it was not a

necessary condition for doing so.

Figure 3: JSIQ subscale scores for high- and low-scoring

groups in Kinesthetic.

Figure 4: JSIQ subscale scores for high- and low-scoring

groups in Performance.

Figure 5: JSIC subscale scores for high- and low-scoring

groups in Surroundings Visualization.

Furthermore, in addition to the MR group having

significantly higher scores in the MG-M subscale,

scores in the Emotions subscale (Fig 2) were also

significantly higher. However, no comments

regarding emotions were seen in the answers to the

question on usual mental rehearsal content. Moreover,

even though many MR athletes scored higher on

emotional imagery ability and frequently used

motivational- type MG-M imagery, there appears to

have been less of a tendency to use the motivational-

type MS imagery associated with goal achievement

or confidence.

Figure 6: JSIQ subscale scores in high- and low-scoring

groups for Emotions.

3.2 High- and Low-scoring in Imagery

Ability and Imagery Use

The high-scoring MR group for the Emotions

subscale (Fig. 6) had significantly higher scores in the

motivational imagery types MS and MG-M. Being

able to practice mental rehearsal with emotional

imagery may have facilitated the use of motivational-

type imagery associated with goal achievement and

confidence. Furthermore, the high-scoring MR group

for Kinesthetic Sensation had significantly higher

scores in the CS and MG-M subscales (Fig. 3) and the

high-scoring group in Surroundings Visualization

had significantly higher scores in the MS and MG-M

subscales (Fig. 5). Thus, among the university

students who strategically practiced mental rehearsal,

those who scored higher in the Emotions, Kinesthetic

Sensation and Surroundings Visualization subscales

could be expected to use motivational imagery for

specific goal achievement and general confidence

maintenance.

REFERENCES

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