Effects of internal versus external focus of attention on the learning of a balance task with a secondary visual task

Abstract

The constrained action hypothesis (CAH) (Wulf, McNevin & Shea, 2001) has been proposed to explain one of the possible mechanisms that underlie the beneficial effects of external focus (e.g., concentration on intended movement effects or external cues) rather than internal focus (e.g., concentration on body movements) of attention for performance and learning new motor skills. Yet, it has not been accurately investigated if CAH is also valid when attentional load increases in a dual-task paradigm. It has been suggested that the use of a continuous cognitive task allows attention to be withdrawn from the balance task thereby facilitating a more automatic control of posture regardless the effect of attention focus (Polskaia, Richer, Dionne, & Lajoie, 2015). So that, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether the effects of attention focus remains even when attentional load increases.