Coaching Imagery to Athletes with Aphantasia

We administered the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (Psi-Q) which tests multi-sensory imagery, to athletes (n=329) from 9 different sports to locate poor/aphantasic (baseline scores <4.2/10) imagers with the aim to subsequently enhance imagery ability. The low imagery sample (n=27) were randomly split into two groups who received the intervention: Functional Imagery Training (FIT), either immediately, or delayed by one month at which point the delayed group were tested again on the Psi-Q. All participants were tested after FIT delivery and six months post intervention. The delayed group showed no significant change between baseline and the start of FIT delivery but both groups imagery score improved significantly (p=0.001) after the intervention which was maintained six months post intervention. This indicates that imagery can be trained, with those who identify as having aphantasia (although one participant did not improve on visual scores), and improvements maintained in poor imagers. Follow up interviews (n=22) on sporting application revealed that the majority now use imagery daily on process goals. Recommendations are given for ways to assess and train imagery in an applied sport setting

Kognitive Karten

Politische, kulturelle, soziale, religiöse und viele andere Faktoren können zu Verzerrungen in kognitiven Karten führen. Mit der Methode der Distanzschätzungen wird untersucht in wie weit die Vorgabe eines positiv und negativ gestalteten Textes über die EU zu einer Verzerrung bestehender kognitiven Karten der EU führt. Des Weiteren wird untersucht auf welche physikalische Distanzen die Distanzschätzungen der Teilnehmer basieren. Untersützt werden die Distanzschätzungen durch die Vorgabe der EU-Flagge und der 1€-Münze

Production and comprehension of audience design behaviours in co-speech gesture

Speakers can use gesture to depict information during conversation (Kendon, 2004). The current thesis investigates how speakers can adjust their gestures to communicate more effectively to an addressee using gesture. Furthermore, the current thesis investigates the mechanisms behind audience design behaviours. Chapter 1 introduces the topics of gestures and audience design, and outlines the structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 explores the definition and classification of gestures, and provides a review of the literature on gesture production, gesture comprehension, and audience design. Chapter 3 investigates the mechanisms responsible for producing audience design behaviours, and the competing factors affecting gesture production. The findings suggest that speakers use cue-based heuristics to design communicative behaviours. Furthermore, the findings suggest that speakers value gesture more for communication when describing spatial stimuli than abstract stimuli. Chapter 4 further investigates the mechanisms responsible for producing audience design behaviours and the factors affecting gesture production. The findings suggest that speakers can both respond to cues from the addressee using heuristics and take the perspective of the addressee. Furthermore, we found no evidence to suggest that the effect of visibility was due to the confounding of visibility and addressee responsiveness. Chapter 5 investigates how foregrounding gestures can help the gestures convey information to the addressee. The findings do not provide unequivocal evidence that foregrounding benefits the addressee’s comprehension. However, trends in the data suggest that making gestures visually prominent or referring to the gesture in speech may help the gesture to convey information to the addressee. Chapter 6 discussed and interpreted the findings from the previous Chapters. It discusses the mechanisms responsible for audience design behaviours, the factors that affect gesture production, and the effect of gestural audience design behaviours on addressee comprehension. The chapter discusses my interpretations of the findings regarding the current literature and proposes further research