Inside An Olympian's Brain
From: Inside An Olympian's Brain
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, Misty May-Treanor and Lin Dan are four Olympic athletes who have each spent most of their life learning the skills needed to reach the top of their respective sports, swimming, gymnastics, beach volleyball and badminton (you were wondering about Lin, weren't you...) Their physical skills are obvious and amazing to watch. For just a few minutes, instead of being a spectator, try to step inside the heads of each of them and try to imagine what their brains must accomplish when they are competing and how different the mental tasks are for each of their sports.
On a continuum from repetitive motion to reactive motion, these four sports each require a different level of brain signal to muscle movement. Think of Phelps finishing off one more gold medal race in the last 50 meters. His brain has one goal; repeat the same stroke cycle as quickly and as efficiently as possible until he touches the wall. There isn't alot of strategy or novel movement based on his opponent's movements. Its simply to be the first one to finish. What is he consciously thinking about during a race? In his post-race interviews, he says he notices the relative positions of other swimmers, his energy level and the overall effort required to win (and in at least one race, the level of water in his goggles.) At his level, the concept of automaticity (as discussed in a previous post) has certainly been reached, where he doesn't have to consciously "think" about the components of his stroke. In fact, research has shown that those who do start analyzing their body movements during competition are prone to errors as they take themselves out of their mental flow.
Moving up the continuum, think about gymnastics. Certainly, the skills to perform a balance beam routine are practiced to the point of fluency, but the skills themselves are not as strictly repetitive as swimming. There are finer points of each movement being judged so gymnasts keep several mental "notes" about the current performance so that they can "remember" to keep their head up or their toes pointed or to gather speed on the dismount. There also is an order of skills or routine that needs to be remembered and activated.
While swimming and gymnastics are battles against yourself and previously rehearsed movements, sports like beach volleyball and badminton require reactionary moves directly based on your opponents' movements. Rather than being "locked-in" to a stroke or practised routine, athletes in direct competition with their opponents must either anticipate or react to be successful.
So,
what is the brain's role in learning each of these varied sets of
skills and what commands do our individual neurons control? Whether we
are doing a strictly repetitive movement like a swim stroke or a
unique, "on the fly" move like a return of a serve, what instructions are sent from our brain to our muscles? Do the neurons of the primary motor cortex (where movement is controlled in the brain) send out signals of both what to do and how to do it?
Researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT led by Robert Ajemian designed an experiment to solve this "muscles or movement" question. They trained adult monkeys to move a video game joystick so that a cursor on a screen would move towards a target. While the monkeys learned the task, they measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the actual movements of the joystick with the firing patterns of neurons. The researchers then developed a model that allowed them to test hypotheses about the relationship between neuronal activity that they measured in the monkey's motor cortex and the resulting actions. They concluded that neurons do send both the specific signals to the muscles to make the movement and a goal-oriented instruction set to monitor the success of the movement towards the goal. Here is a video synopsis of a very similar experiment by Miguel Nicolelis, Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University:
To back this up, Andrew Schwartz, professor of neurobiology at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and his team of researchers wanted to isolate the brain signals from the actual muscles and see if the neuron impulses on their own could produce both intent to move and the movement itself. They taught adult monkeys to feed themselves using a robotic arm while the monkey's own arms were restrained. Instead, tiny probes the width of a human hair were placed in the monkey's motor cortex to pick up the electrical impulses created by the monkey's neurons. These signals were then evaluated by software controlling the robotic arm and the resulting movement instructions were carried out. The monkeys were able to control the arm with their "thoughts" and feed themselves food. Here's a video of this experiment in action:
"In our research, we've demonstrated a higher level of precision, skill and learning," explained Dr. Schwartz. "The monkey learns by first observing the movement, which activates his brain cells as if he were doing it. It's a lot like sports training, where trainers have athletes first imagine that they are performing the movements they desire."
It seems these "mental maps" of neurons in the motor cortex are the end goal for athletes to achieve the automaticity required to either repeat the same rehearsed motions (like Phelps and Liukin) or to react instantly to a new situation (like May-Treanor and Dan). Luckily, we can just practice our own automaticity of sitting on the couch and watching in a mesemerized state.
AJEMIAN, R., GREEN, A., BULLOCK, D., SERGIO, L., KALASKA, J., GROSSBERG, S. (2008). Assessing the Function of Motor Cortex: Single-Neuron Models of How Neural Response Is Modulated by Limb Biomechanics. Neuron, 58(3), 414-428. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.02.033
Velliste, M., Perel, S., Spalding, M.C., Whitford, A.S., Schwartz, A.B. (2008). Cortical control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding. Nature, 453(7198), 1098-1101. DOI: 10.1038/nature06996
Imagine Winning Gold In Beijing
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Imagine winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.
No really, go ahead, close your eyes and visualize it. What did you
see? Were you standing on the medal platform looking out at the crowd,
waving and taking in the scene through your own eyes, or were you a
spectator in the crowd watching yourself getting the medal put around
your neck? This choice between "first-person" or "third-person"
visualization actually makes a difference on our motivation to achieve
a future goal.
Noelia A. Vasquez, at York University and
Roger Buehler, at Wilfrid Laurier University wanted to see if there was
a link between our visualization perspective and our motivation level
to achieve the imagined goal. They asked 47 university students to
imagine the successful completion of a performance task that was in
their near future, whether it be a speech in a class or an upcoming
athletic competition. They were also asked to assume that the task
went extremely well. One group of students were asked to imagine this
scene "through their own eyes" seeing the environment as they would
actually experience it. The second group was told to use the
third-person perspective, pretending they were "in the crowd" watching
themselves as others would see them achieving this goal. Next, they
were given a survey that asked each group how motivated they were to
now go make this successful scene a reality.
As
hypothesized, the group that saw the scene through their audience's
eyes (third-person) ranked their motivation to now succeed
significantly higher than those that imagined it through their own eye
(first-person). The authors' explanation for this is the perceived
additional importance attached to the task when we consider other
peoples' opinion of us and our natural desire to increase our status in
our peer group. Seeing this newly elevated social acceptance and
approval of ourselves from the eyes of our peers motivates us even more
to reach for our goals.
The road to achievements like an
Olympic gold medal is a long one with many steps along the way. Over
the years, as athletes maintain their training regimen, they can keep
imagining the future goal, but they may need to also look back and
recognize the improvements they have made over time. This "progress to
date" assessment will also provide motivation to keep going once they
realize the hard work is actually having the desired effect and moving
them along the desired path. So, as they review their past to present
progress, does the first or third person perspective make a difference
there as well?
Researchers from Cornell, Yale and Ohio State, led by Thomas Gilovich,
professor of psychology at Cornell, designed an experiment to find
out. They recruited a group of university students who had described
their high-school years as "socially awkward" to now recall those years
and compare them with their social skill in college. The first group
was asked to recall the past from a first-person perspective, just as
their memories would provide them. The second group was asked to
remember themselves through the perspective of their classmates
(third-person). Next, each group was asked to assess the personal
change they had accomplished since then.
As predicted,
the group that had recalled their former selves in the third person
reported greater progress and change towards a more social and accepted
person in college than the group that remembered in the first-person.
"We have found that perspective can influence your interpretation of
past events. In a situation in which change is likely, we find that
observing yourself as a third person -- looking at yourself from an
outside observer's perspective -- can help accentuate the changes
you've made more than using a first-person perspective," says
Gilovich. "When participants recalled past awkwardness from a
third-person perspective, they felt they had changed and were now more
socially skilled," said Lisa K. Libby,
an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "That
led them to behave more sociably and appear more socially skilled to
the research assistant."
So, whether looking forward or
backward, seeing yourself through other's eyes seems to provide more
motivation to not only continue the road to success, but to appreciate
the progress you have made.
Then the actual day of competition arrives. It is one hour before you take your position on the starting blocks at the "Bird's Nest" stadium in Beijing or on the mat at the National Indoor Stadium
for the gymnastics final. Should you be imagining the medal ceremony
and listening to your country's national anthem at that point? In a
recent Denver Post article,
Peter Haberl, senior sports psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee
says, "It takes a great deal of ability and skill to stay focused on
the task at hand." He distinguishes between an "outcome" goal,
(receiving the medal) and "performance" (improving scores/times) and
"process" (improving technique) goals. "The difference is that these
types of goals are much more under the control of the athlete,"
explains Haberl. "The process goal, in particular, directs attention to
the here and now, which allows the athlete to totally focus on the
doing of the activity; this is key to performing well. This sounds
simple but it really is quite difficult because the mind takes you to
the past and the future all the time, particularly in the Olympic
environment with its plethora of distractions and enticing rewards."
Mental imagery is a well-known tool for every athlete to make distant
and difficult goals seem attainable. By seeing your future
accomplishments through the eyes of others, you can attach more
importance and reward to achieving them. Just imagine yourself in London in 2012!
Vasquez, N.A. (2007). Seeing Future Success: Does Imagery Perspective
Influence Achievement Motivation?. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 33(10), 1392-1405.
Libby, L.K., Eibach, R.P.,
Gilovich, T. (2005). Here's Looking at Me: The Effect of Memory
Perspective on Assessments of Personal Change.. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 88(1), 50-62. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.88.1.50
