Effects of relaxing and arousing music on imagery for dart throwing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of relaxing and arousing music during imagery rehearsal on dart-throwing performance. Forty-five volunteer sports science students with intermediate imagery ability, as measured by the Sport Imagery Ability Measure, were matched into three groups: 1) Unfamiliar relaxing music with imagery; 2) Unfamiliar arousing music with imagery; and 3) no music with imagery (control). Unfamiliar music was chosen to minimize the potential confound of past associations. A pre-test-intervention post-test design study was conducted, involving dart throwing at a concentric circles dartboard. To measure state anxiety the CSAI-2R and Sport grid-R were administered before the 40-trial dart-throwing performance pre-test. Participants completed 12 sessions of imagery of accurate dart-throwing, then the CSAI-2R and Sport grid-R were re-administered in session 12 followed by the 40-trial performance post-test. In sessions 1 and 12, HR, GSR, and peripheral temperature were measured.ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for music (F = 3.25, p < .05, ?2 =.134). A significant interaction effect was observed for dart-throwing performance across the music conditions (F = 12.0, p < .05, ?2 =.36). Paired t tests in each music condition revealed that there was a significant improvement of performance in the relaxing music (p < .05) and arousing music groups (p < .05), but not in the no-music control group (p > .05). In conclusion, relaxing and arousing music both showed improvements in dart throwing performance, although unfamiliar relaxing classical music showed a larger performance increase in this fine motor skill. Self-report and psychophysiological measures of anxiety and arousal showed changes that were consistent with those expected for relaxing and arousing music.