Author(s): WANG, K., CHEN, D.T., LIN, C.Y., Institution: NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY, Country: TAIWAN, Abstract-ID: 1179

INTRODUCTION:
Although self-talk has been widely used as a psychological skill to facilitate motor performance, it remains unclear whether the effectiveness of different types of self-talk depends on task difficulty, particularly in precision sport tasks (e.g., golf). In addition, limited evidence has examined whether instructional self-talk and motivational self-talk have differential benefits when movement accuracy demands are increased. Therefore, this pilot study aimed to examine whether task difficulty moderates the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on golf putting performance.
METHODS:
Twelve skilled golfers were recruited and randomly assigned to a control group, an instructional self-talk group, or a motivational self-talk group. All participants met standard neurological and behavioral inclusion criteria and the study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee (REC: 202411HM042). Participants performed a golf putting task under two levels of task difficulty, defined as an easy condition (target success rate of approximately 90–100%) and a difficult condition (target success rate of approximately 40–50%), following a counterbalanced order. In each condition, participants executed 30 putts.
Instructional self-talk group focused on movement-related cues (e.g., aiming at the target, focusing on ball trajectory and clubface, and relaxed movement), whereas motivational self-talk group consisted of general motivational phrases (e.g., “I can do it”, “come on”). Putting accuracy was indexed by mean radial error (MRE). Performance was analyzed using a 3 (Group: control, instructional, motivational) × 2 (Task difficulty: easy, difficult) mixed-model ANOVA.

RESULTS:
Preliminary results indicated that instructional self-talk was associated with lower MRE during the difficult putting condition, whereas motivational self-talk showed only modest improvement and the control group exhibited a tendency toward performance decline. In contrast, MRE values were no significant difference across groups in the easy condition.
CONCLUSION:
This pilot study suggests that instructional self-talk may be more beneficial than motivational self-talk when task demands are high in fine-motor performance. These preliminary findings are consistent with attention-control and psychomotor efficiency accounts, indicating that task-relevant movement cues may help performers allocate cognitive resources more efficiently and maintain execution accuracy under increased difficulty. Ongoing data collection with a larger sample will further clarify the robustness of this moderating effect of task difficulty.