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. 2023 Nov 13;18(11):e0294246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294246

The location of an internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performance

Andrew J Strick 1,*, Logan T Markwell 1, Hubert Makaruk 2, Jared M Porter 1
Editor: Monika Błaszczyszyn3
PMCID: PMC10642821  PMID: 37956130

Abstract

Prior research has questioned the appropriateness of internal focus instructions or the juxtaposition to external and control conditions. Moreover, there has been a lack of research conducted to test a variety of internal conditions on motor performance. The purpose of the present study was to address those critiques and add to the attentional focus literature by varying the location of an internal focus while performing a standing long jump. Participants performed a standing long jump during five separate conditions (internal focus: toes, knees, hips, arms; and control). The analysis revealed that all internal focus conditions performed worse than the control condition. Furthermore, the only difference between internal conditions was found between arms and knees, where the knee condition resulted in a significantly shorter jump distance relative to the arms. Regardless of the location specified, all internal focus conditions led to detriments in jump performance when compared to the control condition. These findings add to a large body of work demonstrating the importance of instructional content on motor performance.

Introduction

Since the inception of focus of attention research, numerous studies have found that directing attentional resources externally towards the movement effect improves motor performance and learning compared to an internal focus or control conditions (for a review, see [1]). For instance, when hitting a golf ball, an external focus of attention (EFOA) would be a focus on the movement of the golf club during task execution. In contrast, adopting an internal focus of attention (IFOA) for the same task would direct attention towards body movements of the arms or rotation of the torso when swinging the golf club. The motor performance and learning differences from these two separate ways of directing attentional resources have been explained by the constrained action hypothesis [2]. The constrained action hypothesis proposes the motor control system operates more autonomously when attention is directed externally. Whereas the motor control system is disrupted when attention is focused internally.

The predictions made by the constrained action hypothesis have been rigorously tested across numerous experimental paradigms [1]. Disruption of the motor control system when focusing attentional resources internally has been observed in a variety of studies pairing outcome results with measures of electromyography (EMG) [3–6], movement production [7,8], and central nervous system activity [7,9,10]. Studies investigating attentional resources effect on maximal force production using EMG have found disruption of automatic control processes via greater muscle activation paired with decreased maximal force output [5]. Furthermore, other EMG based studies have shown greater co-contraction of agonist and antagonist musculature when focusing internally paired with decreased motor performance in the vertical jump [6] and dart throw [3,4]. Additionally, Kal et al. [8] tested predictions of the constrained action hypothesis by measuring movement automatization in a cyclic single leg extension-flexion task. Results from their study found shorter movement times and more regular movement execution when focusing externally compared to focusing internally, which suggests that an internal focus disrupted more regular automatic movement patterns when compared to an external focus. Furthermore, findings from Huang et al. [7] showed that an EFOA elicited greater postural regularity and greater brain activation in the right temporo-parietal junction associated with force matching compared to an IFOA when performing a stabilometer balancing task. Results from these studies show greater movement regularity with an EFOA compared to an IFOA. Other attentional focus research measuring central nervous system activity found greater inhibition in the primary motor cortex (M1) and longer durations in a timed task till failure for an EFOA compared to an IFOA [9]. Their findings suggested this inhibitory motor control was disrupted while focusing internally, contributing to greater movement inefficiency compared to focusing externally. In addition, other work investigating attentional focus on neural pathways found that focusing externally during a foot pedal pressing task led to greater activation of faster neural pathways, whereas focusing internally resulted in slower motor pathways [10]. In sum, the evidence provided from a multitude of different measures supports the predictions made from the constrained action hypothesis [2]. An IFOA seems to disrupt the automatic control processes of the motor system, whereas an EFOA facilitates automatic control processes.

One of the ways practitioners and researchers implement focus of attention is through the delivery of verbal instructions. In furthering this area of research, McNevin et al. [11] used a dynamic balancing task to compare the distance of near versus far EFOA instructions. Instructions in the near EFOA (i.e., proximal) condition directed attentional focus at markers in close proximity to the mover’s feet, whereas the far-outside and far-inside EFOA (i.e., distal) conditions were instructed to focus attentional resources at markers placed distally from the mover: near the outside edges, and at the center of the balance platform. McNevin et al. [11] found motor learning benefits for both of the far EFOA conditions compared to the near EFOA condition. Their results advanced focus of attention research by providing initial evidence for greater motor learning benefits for instructions that direct attention externally more distally compared to proximally.

This distance effect was further expanded to include motor performance in the standing long jump (SLJ) by Porter et al., [12,13]. In their initial study [12], for each SLJ attempt the IFOA group was instructed to “…focus your attention on extending your knees as rapidly as possible. In contrast, the EFOA group was instructed to “…focus your attention on jumping as far past the start line as possible”. Results from their study showed evidence for greater SLJ distance when focusing externally compared to internally. Porter et al. [13] extended their previous work using instructions to test distal versus proximal external focus on SLJ performance. Findings from this study confirmed earlier work from McNevin et al., [11] as the data showed that horizontal jump distance was systematically increased as attention was directed at spatially greater distances from the mover. Since the aforementioned findings, much research using the SLJ has been conducted exploring the distance effect on motor learning and performance with regard to the external far condition [14–18].

Other research has investigated adjustments made to IFOA conditions. Recently, Pelleck and Passmore [19] investigated two separate internal foci compared to an EFOA when putting a golf ball. Participants were instructed to focus on the hands and elbows (i.e., proximal internal), focus on the weight of their feet (i.e., distal internal), or focus on the target (i.e., external). They found the novice’s golf putting accuracy was worse for the distal internal focus at the 5-meter distance compared to the other conditions. However, the authors noted that their results can be interpreted as a task relevant (proximal) and task-irrelevant (distal) attentional focus since the distal focus may not be as relevant to the golf putting task, and thus, may not be an equivalent comparison. Separate from task relevancy, Becker and Smith [20] compared a broad IFOA (e.g., focus on using the legs) and a narrow IFOA (e.g., focus specifically on extending the knees) relative to using an EFOA (e.g., jump past the start line) when performing the SLJ. Not only did their findings show that an EFOA led to the greatest performance, which is in line with previous work, but they also revealed that there were no differences between the broad or narrow internal focus conditions. While previous research has examined internal attentional focus in relation to performance, these studies have focused on comparing attention directed to a task-relevant or task-irrelevant cue [19] or attention allocation strategies categorized as board or narrow [20]. Taken together, adjustments investigating changes including altering focus of attention distance [19] or changing focus of attention breadth [20], but very little research has been conducted investigating different IFOA locations. Using the task of long-distance baseball throwing, Oki et al. [21] provided instructions comparing two internal focus conditions, quick wrist flexion and twisting of the torso, relative to external focusing instructions on the ball trajectory in skilled baseball players. Their results showed that focusing on wrist flexion resulted in significantly shorter throwing distance compared to the other two conditions. Interestingly, there was a marginal increase in throwing distance for the EFOA condition compared to the torso internal condition, but it did not meet statistical significance. Separately, Coker [22] had children perform the SLJ to investigate multiple attentional focus instructional cues on motor performance. Findings from this study showed that an external focus led to longer SLJ performances compared to internally focusing on the arms swinging as rapidly as possible and knees extending as rapidly as possible. Coker [22] concluded that their results do not match previous work and could be indicative that children do not have the same level of constrained action as adult movers when performing a horizontal jump.

A variety of critiques have been put forth against research that claims there are detrimental effects on performance when using an internal attentional focus [23]. Additionally, various researchers have questioned the validity of some instructions by their appropriateness or relevant comparison for a given motor skill [23,24]. Others have proposed the value of using internal oriented cues to feel the movements [25]. Moreover, others have suggested the possibility that internal instructions may benefit novices in learning the fundamental dynamics of the movement technique [26]. Given these considerations, the purpose of the present study was to investigate how changes to the location of an internal focus affects standing long jump performance. This differs from previous investigations as this study specifically examined how various internal foci impact motor performance. Based on previous attentional focus work using the SLJ task [12–14,16,20,22,27–30], it was predicted that worse performances would be observed in all internal focus conditions compared to a control condition. Additionally, it was predicted that there would be no significant differences between the IFOA conditions. Such findings would indicate that an internal focus of attention, regardless of its location, is detrimental to the execution of the SLJ. Establishing detrimental equality across a breadth of internal foci is important from both a practical and theoretical perspective. Previous studies examining the focus of attention effect have consistently demonstrated that directing attention externally results in greater SLJ jump distance relative to directing attention internally [12,13,17]. Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis validated the robustness of the effect across multiple jumping actions [31]. As a result, we did not include an EFOA condition in the present study. Rather, we sought to specifically investigate how jump distance was impacted by various forms of an IFOA relative to jumps completed in a control condition. To be precise, we chose task-relevant instructions that referenced gross body actions to prevent the confound of comparing task relevancy and irrelevancy, on an IFOA location when performing the SLJ.

Method

Participants

Consistent with the population and sample size used in similar previous research [31], a total of twenty-nine (M = 21.24, SD = 1.43) male undergraduate college aged students volunteered to participate in the experiment. Only males were included in this study to eliminate sex based differences. None of the participants received previous training in the SLJ. Additionally, none of the volunteers were current or former collegiate or professional athletes. Participants were naïve to the purpose of the study in that they were not informed of the focus of attention predictions on performance. All participants read and signed a written informed consent form before participating in the experiment. A university’s Institutional Review Board approved all forms and methods prior to the recruitment of participants.

Apparatus and task

All data collection took place in a climate-controlled research laboratory. The standing long jump task used in the present study was identical to the jumping task used in previous focus of attention research [4,5,9,10]. All participants were instructed that the goal was to perform the jumping task to the best of their ability. A large black rubber mat of 4.57 meters in length and 0.61 meters in width (Power Systems, Knoxville, TN) with 0.5 inches (1.27cm) between measurement lines running the length of the mat was used for the experiment. Each measurement line on the mat measured 0.125 inches (0.318 cm) in width. After each standing long jump trial, jump distance was measured (in inches) from the start line to the heel of the foot nearest to the start line. This measurement was recorded and later converted into centimeters (cm) for analysis. Before each jump, participants were asked to hold their position after landing so the researcher could measure their performance. A within-participant design was used, where every participant performed two trials under each condition. Condition order was randomized across participants in an attempt to minimize order effects, Table 1.

Table 1. Count and percentage of first and last condition tested.

Count of Condition Order Percentage of Condition Order
First Last First Last
Toe 5 12 17% 41%
Hip 7 7 24% 24%
Knee 8 2 28% 7%
Arms 2 2 7% 7%
Control 7 6 24% 21%
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Procedures

Upon entering the laboratory, each participant was asked to read and sign an informed consent. Consistent with previous research [12,13,17,18], participants then performed a 5-minute brisk walking warm-up. Upon completion of the warm-up, participants performed a total of 10 standing long jumps. For this study, there were a total of five conditions. Specifically, there were four different task-relevant internal focus conditions with participants being instructed to direct their attention towards specific parts of the body (i.e., toes, knees, hips, arms) prior to the jump. Attentional instructions in this study followed similar cues given in previous work [12,17,22]. The specific instructions for each internal condition were as follows:

Toe: I want you to focus on your toes. When jumping as far as possible focus on pushing your toes down into the floor.

Knee: I want you to focus on your knees. When jumping as far as possible focus on extending your knees as fast as you can.

Hips: I want you to focus on your hips. When jumping as far as possible focus on pushing forward with your hips as fast as you can.

Arms: I want you to focus on your arms. When jumping as far as possible focus on forcefully swinging your arms forward during the jump.

Participants also completed two trials in a control condition which asked them to “perform the jumping task to the best of your ability.” For all conditions, before each jump, the researcher provided verbal instructions to participants. Verbal instructions in all four internal focus conditions were used to direct attentional focus. No attention directing cues were provided prior to trials completed in the control condition. Participants performed two consecutive jumps in each of the five conditions for a total of 10 jumps. Each jump was separated by a one-minute rest before moving onto the next attempt. Participants were not informed of their jump distance following any trial and no verbal encouragement was provided to the participants. Following the completion of the study, participants were thanked for their involvement and then they left the testing facility.

Statistical analysis

The statistical analysis was performed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 27. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to evaluate the potential differences in standing long jump distances among the five experimental conditions. A Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the normality assumption and a Mauchly’s test of sphericity was used to test the assumption of sphericity. A post-hoc power analysis using G*Power version 3.1 was used to measure the power of the study [32]. Post-hoc simple effects paired t-tests were used to differentiate between the experimental conditions. Both trials within each condition were averaged for the analyses. Effect sizes for the repeated measures ANOVA were calculated using partial Eta-squared analysis and Cohen’s d [33] were calculated for post-hoc pairwise comparisons.

Results

Mauchly’s test of sphericity indicated no violation of unequal variances (p > .05), so sphericity was assumed. A Shapiro-Wilk test found that only the hip condition (p = .048) violated the normality assumption. There were two outliers in the hip condition; however, removal of the outliers led to no statistical differences in our analysis. Therefore, all the data collected was kept for analysis, see Table 2 for descriptives. The ANOVA indicated there was a statistically significant main effect for condition, F(4, 28) = 7.78, p < .001, ηp2 = .22. For the effect size, a sample of 29 participants and an alpha level of 0.05, the post-hoc power analysis showed the study was sufficiently powered with a 1-β of 0.99. Post-hoc simple effects analyses revealed there was a statistically significant difference from which greater average jump distance was observed in the control condition compared to all other conditions: toe, t(28) = 3.78, p < .001, d = .70, hip, t(28) = 3.77, p < .001, d = .70, knee, t(28) = 4.17, p < .001, d = .78, and arm, t(28) = 2.78, p = .010, d = .52 (Fig 1). Furthermore, post-hoc analysis revealed that there was a statistically significant difference where a greater average jump distance was observed in the arm (M = 198.51, SE = 4.13) compared to the knee (M = 191.86, SE = 4.22) conditions, t(28) = 2.52, p = .018, d = .47. No other differences were observed.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for standing long jump conditions.

Condition M 95% CI SD
Toe 195.10 187.12–203.07 20.96
Hip 192.76 184.35–201.17 22.11
Knee 191.86 183.20–200.51 22.75
Arm 198.51 190.05–206.98 22.25
Control 206.24 196.78–215.71 24.89
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M, mean; CI, confidence interval; SD, standard deviation.

Error bars reflect standard error. *p < .05. Jump distance in the Control condition was significantly further than the other four conditions. Additionally, the Arm condition had a greater jump distance than the Knee condition. No other differences were observed.

Fig 1. Standing long jump distance measures.

Fig 1

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Discussion

Much research has been conducted in the past two decades investigating how altering a mover’s focus of attention impacts motor performance and learning [2]. An overwhelming majority of the studies conducted on this topic have found that an EFOA leads to improved motor skill performance and learning compared to an IFOA (see [1,31] for recent meta-analyses and reviews). In addition to the beneficial effects of an external attentional focus, this literature provides evidence that an internal focus of attention has detrimental effects on performance compared to both an external condition and a control condition in which no-attention directing instructions are provided [1]. While these results have been found to be relatively consistent for more than 20 years of research, some researchers have proposed that the instructions provided to promote an internal focus were not necessarily appropriate, and as a result, led to the observed detrimental effects [23,24]. In other words, perhaps some internal focusing cues enhance performance while others depress performance. Henceforth, in the present study we sought to test this hypothesis using a variety of task-relevant internal cues within the SLJ, which is a task that has been shown to produce reliable results in previous focus of attention research [12–14,17,20,27–31]. Furthermore, some researchers have questioned the universality of the focus of attention effect, suggesting that an internal focus may in fact promote automaticity in non-experts and that the attentional focus effects may not be generalizable to low or moderately skilled performers [24]. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test if changing the location of an IFOA resulted in performance changes when executing a SLJ. To achieve this aim, participants were provided different IFOA instructional cues (i.e., toes, knees, hips, arms) compared to a neutral instruction given in a control condition. It was predicted that regardless of the locality of the IFOA instructions, there would be performance detriments to the SLJ when compared to jumps completed in a control condition. The results of the current study confirmed the experimental hypothesis, illustrating all internally focused instructions led to detriments in performance compared to jumps completed in the control condition. These findings are consistent with previous research showing the provision of IFOA instructions inhibits optimal SLJ performance [12,14,17,27–31]. Additionally, our prediction that there would be no differences in jumping performance between the internal conditions was not supported. Specifically, we observed a significant difference between jumps completed in the “knee” condition and the “arm” condition, with further jumps observed in the “arm” compared to the “knee” condition. It is important to note that the jump distance for both of the “arm” and “knee” conditions were significantly shorter compared to the control condition.

The constrained action hypothesis explains how focusing internally leads to decreases in motor performance [2]. According to this hypothesis, an IFOA constrains the motor control systems via conscious control of movements thereby decreasing self-organized automaticity leading to decrements in motor performance. In contrast, adopting an EFOA facilitates self-organized automaticity via unconscious control of the motor system leading to enhanced performance. Findings from the present study show empirical evidence supporting the generalizability of IFOA as hypothesized by Wulf et al. [2]. That is, all internal conditions, regardless of location, resulted in significantly shorter standing long jump distances compared to jumps completed in the control condition. However, the constrained action hypothesis does not explain differences observed between two of the IFOA conditions (i.e., knee & arms). We offer several possible explanations for this finding in the following section.

Previous research using electromyography (EMG), across a variety of motor tasks, corroborate the predictions of the constrained action hypothesis showing increases in muscular activation when using an IFOA with a subsequent performance detriment compared to an EFOA [4,6,34,35]. Specifically, [35] postulated that an IFOA introduced “noise” to the motor control system that could be the cause for the decrease in performance. Lohse et al. [36] found increased co-contraction of the of agonist and antagonist muscle groups in a simple force reduction task, which demonstrated inefficient muscle recruitment for an IFOA condition when compared to an EFOA. Taken together, we speculate the reason for the significant difference between internal knee and arm conditions could be that within the internal knee condition, there was greater muscular co-contraction of primary jumping muscles (e.g., hamstrings & quadriceps) compared to the internal arm condition during the standing long jump task. A decrease in efficiency of the relevant musculature due to the adoption of an IFOA surrounding the knee joint could explain the performance decrements when compared to decreased efficiency from less relevant musculature found in the internal arm condition.

Another explanation for the difference we observed between arm and knee conditions in the present study could be explained via the distance effect, whereby greater motor performance is achieved by directing attentional resources further away from the body [11]. Previous work from Porter et al. [12] compared external far, external near, and control conditions in a similar SLJ task. Their findings showed that performance was optimized when external cues directed attention further away from the body. Unlike previous work, the present investigation looked at only a variety of internal conditions compared to attempts completed in a control condition. The distance effect may be generalized to include internal cues, whereby, internal cues that direct attention nearest to the center of gravity, result in decreased performance. Under that assumption, one would expect to find distal internal cues focused on the arm swing resulting in greater performance compared to more proximal internal cues focused on the knees. However, we did not see significant differences between a more proximal hip condition relative to the knee. This may be due to the short distance between the center of gravity and the internal cues given for the knee and hip as compared to the larger distance between the center of gravity and the arms. The larger distances may have passed a necessary threshold to elicit a change in performance found in the data observed for this experiment. Hence the results of this study could be the first to provide evidence for the generalizability of the distance effect to internal cues, since the distal arm condition resulted in greater long jump performance compared to the more proximal knee condition.

Momentum is another factor that could contribute to the differences we observed between the knee and arm conditions. Previous research has shown that utilizing arm movement during the standing long jump leads to greater jump distances when compared to restricted or limited arm movement [37–39]. It is possible that a byproduct of instructions directing attention internally to the arms results in an increased generation of upper extremity momentum. This additional momentum, created from the internal arm condition, may have resulted in an increase in long jump distance compared to the knee condition.

The present study sought to investigate if directing attention internally towards different body movements differentially affected the execution of the SLJ. Previous researchers [24,26] have proposed that some internal cues may be enhancing while others are depressing. The results of the present study suggest this point of view may not be accurate in relation to performing the SLJ. That is, jumping performance was depressed relative to a control condition regardless of which form of internal focus was cued. These results confirm predictions made by the constrained action hypothesis and demonstrate that a variety of IFOA instructions reduce standing long jump performance, some worse than others. In conclusion, the findings reported here highlight the importance of avoiding verbal cues which direct attention internally when instructing the SLJ. Furthermore, the findings reported here corroborate previous findings in that jumpers should be cued to direct their attention externally rather than adopting any form of an internal cue.

There are some limitations to the findings of this paper. First, we only had college-aged male novices participate in this experiment. This assisted in preventing the confound of sex-based differences on the SLJ but limits our findings to a specific population. Future work should investigate if a variety of internal focus cues affect motor performance in more diverse populations. Second, our findings are specific to the SLJ; therefore, future work should be conducted on the generalizability of these findings to other motor skills.

Supporting information

S1 Data

(XLSX)

Click here for additional data file. (10.3KB, xlsx)

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the authors for their contributions for this manuscript, and all participants for participating in this study. Additionally, we would like to thank the reviewers which provided thoughtful feedback improving the quality of our paper.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information Files.

Funding Statement

No funding was attained or acquired for this study.

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Decision Letter 0

Monika Błaszczyszyn

20 Apr 2023

PONE-D-23-04667The location of an internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performancePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Strick,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 04 2023 11:59PM​. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Monika Błaszczyszyn

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The present study investigated the effect of different internal focusing cues in standing long jump performance. The study design was simple, which afforded clear results and interpretations. Also, the methodology was similar to the previous literature, which further strengthens the validity of the study and increases the capacity of the present results to compare and contrast with other studies. However, I have some major concerns regarding the introduction and need clarifications in the statistical analyses.

Introduction

(1) (minor) Line 47 and 48: the ‘motor control system’ and ‘motor behavior’

Are they used synonymously (It seems the latter has a broader meaning)? I recommend using a consistent term if not used purposefully.

(2) (minor) Line 54: ‘…as attention was directed at greater distances from the mover.’

I suggest adding “spatially” or “physically”: e.g., at spatially greater distances. Also, the jump distance increased as the spatial cue of the EFOA moved physically farther, not the jump distance ‘was’ increased, correct?

(3) (minor) The second paragraph: I believe adding more contexts (regarding what parameters or factors have been investigated in SLJ) strengthens the authors’ argument and provides an even better transition to the next paragraph:

(Original) “Since the aforementioned findings, much research using the SLJ has been conducted exploring the distance effect on motor learning and performance with regard to the external far condition [6-10].”

(Recommendation example) I suggest providing specific factors investigated: e.g., “Since the aforementioned findings, various factors of the SLJ have been investigated, including attainability [6,7,10], skill levels [8,9], and xxxxx [REFS]”

(4) (major) The flow of the third and fourth paragraphs is challenging to follow. I recommend a major reorganization of these paragraphs for the following reasons:

a. In the first sentence of the third paragraph, the author brought up three topics: distance, relevance, and breadth of attention. This should be narrowed down.

b. The authors implied, in the first sentence, that the paragraph would be about the distance of IFOA; however, the argument about the distance effect is refuted within the same paragraph, and switched to the topic of relevance without discussing interpretation, providing an approach to consolidate the issue, or providing a theoretical approach to make distinctions between the distance and relevance.

c. The criticism about the relevance was mentioned in the middle of the third paragraph, which was brought up again in the fourth paragraph after discussing different issues. This structure was very difficult to follow.

d. Line 77 – 80 start from: “others have proposed that…” to “the movement techniques” Although these arguments may be reasonable to bring up in the discussion, it seems irrelevant to the present manuscript. I recommend removing these sentences and focusing on the primary topic of the study (i.e., locus of internal foci).

e. The argument of the third and fourth paragraphs is vague: What is the critical factor affecting the previous results introduced here? The distance or relevance? What is the (potential) relationship? What do the authors desire to investigate or clarify in the present manuscript (relevance, distance, or the interaction of both)?

(5) How is the breadth of the attentional focus cues related to the purpose of the present manuscript?

(6) (major) Before the authors provided their hypotheses, it didn’t seem that the problem of the previous studies (distance vs. relevance) was not consolidated:

a. What is the rationale for choosing these different body parts specific to the relevance of the cues and specific to the distance of the cues?

b. What is the rationale for hypothesizing all cues, regardless of the distance and relevance, are equally poorer than an EFOA? For instance, the authors discussed the results regarding the breadth of the focus of attention, which was not different by its factor. However, the authors mentioned that the relevance OR distance did affect the results. Then, the hypothesis is inconsistent with the previous study (Pelleck & Passmore), which is fine, but why?

c. What is the ‘relevance’ of each IFOA cue? Any support from biomechanics, motor control, or strength & conditioning literature?

Method:

• (minor) Participants: Although I am not a strong proponent of blindly relying on the power analysis (because it is more complicated than how they have been used), providing justifications for the sample size is important.

• (minor) Participants: Please justify why only males were recruited (a sentence or two would be sufficient).

• (minor) Participants: How were they recruited? What are the characteristics of the participants? (who can the cohort be generalized?).

• (minor) Apparatus and task: Was the order completely randomized or pseudo-randomized? That is, was there any order effect at all?

Statistical analysis

• (major) How was Type I error controlled?

• (major) Was there any missing data? How did you validate the assumptions? Were there any outliers? How were they decided to be treated before data analysis?

Results:

• (major) How can the degree of freedom be 28 where the sample size was 26?

• Could you provide a table of M and SD?

Figure

• Could you replace the figure with an alternative method? E.g., superimposing raw data over the current bar graph, adding a violin plot next to the current graph, or superimposing the mean and SE points over a box plot (or simply, a box plot). Bar graphs do not show the distribution of the data, so it’s not reader-friendly to demonstrate the validity of the statistical choices.

Reviewer #2: The article entitled “The location of internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performance” presents a study in a long line of research on the effects of attentional focus on performance and learning. Typically, research on attentional focus has centered on the benefits of an external focus compared to a control or internal focus of attention. Consistently, an internal focus of attention has found to be less beneficial than an external focus. The present study sought to investigate various locations of internal focus compared to a control condition. The findings indicate that performance during the internal focus condition was consistently worse on a standing long jump compared to a control condition. Four different locations of internal focus were examined, and a significant difference emerged between performance focus on the knees vs arms.

While the study is generally well written, there are a number of methodological issues that prevent one from drawing conclusions about the results. I will present my general concerns below, followed by specific comments.

General Comments

The authors test a variety of locations of internal focus, but what was the reasoning behind the locations selected? It should be the case that the internal focus locations examined should cover the range of possible variations of internal focus characteristics (e.g., proximal, distal, relevant, irrelevant, etc). The authors should justify their selected choices. For example, if I selected a collections of internal focus locations (e.g,. pointer finger, pinky finger, thumb), I could easily show no difference between internal focus conditions, and potentially wrongly conclude that all internal focus locations are equally detrimental.

The authors claim that an internal focus is detrimental. However, are the authors actually able to claim it is “detrimental”? Does an internal focus actively hurt performance, or does an external focus improve performance relative to internal focus which has no effect on performance at all? For example, if the participants adopted an internal focus, would that result in worse performance, than if they focused on the color blue (assuming that focusing on a color would have zero impact on performance). This leads me to another concern with the methodology. One can’t assume that the control condition acts as a baseline because we don’t know what the participants were focusing on. The lack of manipulation check hampers the ability to determine how to interpret control condition performance. For example, research exists that suggests under control conditions, participants tend to adopt an internal focus of condition. If this happened in the present study, then you essentially have 5 different internal focus conditions, and thus we see differences across internal focus locations in contradiction to the hypothesis of the study.

It appears that the familywise error rate was not taken into account when performing the multiple post hoc comparisons. If one were to implement a Bonferroni correction, then the difference between these two internal conditions would no longer significant. .05/5 = .01 (required significance level).

Specific Comments

Line 46. This is a limited explanation of constrained action hypothesis, and could use a more accurate and detailed explanation of this. For example, explain what is meant when you say system operates more autonomously. Saying that behavior is disrupted doesn’t explain how internal focus hurts performance. This is vague. In what way is it disrupted?

Line 51. You need to better explain what you mean by distance of an EFOA. You need to clarify that you are referring to distal and proximal relationship to the body. A reader with no background in this topic wouldn’t understand what you mean by distance (e.g., distance of what?). You reference this later in the paper, but could be explained earlier when you initially start talking about distance of EFOA.

Line 54. Provide examples of different types of external distance instructions used in this study, in case the reader hasn’t read this article.

Participants: Why only male participants? Were they novice at the SLJ?

Line 121: Please state exactly what the participants were told for the internal focus conditions. What was the exact phrase used?

Line 123: Was the control condition always performed first? No mention of the order of conditions.

Results: Looking at Fig 1, while there are significant differences, it appears that the difference in jump length is only a few centimeters. Is this meaningful?

Line 153: “movers” should be “mover’s”

Line 157: Is it determinantal, or does it just not provide anything helpful?

Line 172: Since you don’t know what people will focus on in the control condition, how can you predict that performance will be different? What if people in the control condition focused on their body movement? Research shows that there is a tendency to adopt an internal focus on sports skills.

Line 178: The difference between these internal conditions appeared to be very small (approximately 2cm). It would be more helpful to provide a relative change in jump length (i.e., 1% increase in jump length). Need to provide the average length of the jumps, then the reader can determine how meaningful 2cm actually is.

Line 186: Can automaticity be anything other than self-organized?

Line 190: “significantly” only with respect to statistics. I’m not convinced this small difference is meaningful.

Discussion: Given the possible reasons for why various internal focus conditions might lead to the observed differences between the legs and arms, why did the researchers predict no differences between the various internal focus conditions. Clearly there are logical reasons why difference might have existed.

Line 215: I’m not sure how arms are considered more distal and legs. From what point are you measuring from?

Reviewer #3: General Comments

A within-participants experimental design was used in this study to investigate the differential effects on horizontal jump distance of adopting four types of internal attentional focus and no attentional focus during standing long jump. It was found that participants jumped farther in the control condition as compared to any of the four internal focus conditions. Participants also had better jump performance when adopting an internal focus on the arm than the knee. There are several major concerns regarding literature review accuracy, methodological rigor, figure accuracy, and basis of discussion points. Several minor recommendations/suggestions were provided in the hope that the authors would find them helpful for improving the overall quality of the manuscript.

Major Comments – Introduction

1. Pg. 4 Lines 72−73: Coker (2018), Neumann and Piercy (2013), Pelleck and Passmore (2017), Schϋcker, Fleddermann, de Lussanet, Elischer, Bohmer, and Zentgraf (2016), Schϋcker, Hagemann, Strauss, and Volker (2009), Schϋcker, Schmeing, and Hagemann (2016), Hill, Schϋcker, Hagemann, and Strauβ (2017), and Oki, Kokubu, and Nagagomi (2018) also compared various types of internal focus cues with external focus cues.

2. Pg. 4 Lines 82−83: See above comment regarding other studies that examined various types of internal focus.

Major Comments – Methods

3. Pg. 5 Line 98: Was this sample size recruited based on a statistical power analysis?

4. Pg. 5 Line 105: As a general guide, only aspects of the task environment that are known to significantly influence motor performance or would be manipulated as required by the design of the intervention need to be described for replication purposes. And for such purposes, adequate details should be provided for reference by other researchers. Does climate control serve these purposes?

5. Pg. 5 Line 109: Specify the thickness of this line.

6. Pg. 5 Lines 112−113: It is mathematically impossible to counterbalance 120 ways of arranging five conditions across 26 participants.

7. Pg. 6 Lines 119−120: Provide examples of how these IFOA cues were used in the instructions given to participants.

8. Pg. 6 Line 131: Were the data checked for normality of distribution to ensure the valid use of ANOVA?

Major Comments – Results

9. Pg. 7 Lines 143−144: Report the direction of this significant difference.

10. Pg. 16 Figure 1: Why are all the error bars of equal length? What are the SE values for these five jump distances?

Major Comments – Discussion

11. Pg. 8 Line 171: The terms within the parentheses are more appropriately described as cues rather than instructions. The use of “in addition” here suggests that internal focus instructions were added to neutral instruction given in the control condition.

12. Pg. 9 Line 189: What does the “generalizability of IFOA” mean?

13. Pg. 10 Line 215−218: Would the hips not be a more proximal IFOA cue than the knees? This “center-of-gravity” hypothesis would predict that an internal focus on the arms would also allow participants to jump farther than an internal focus on the hips. This difference, however, was found to be non-significant in this study.

14. What are the limitations of this study?

15. How could the findings of this study be applied?

Minor Comments

16. Pg. 2 Line 44: Does this emergence refer to the empirical evidence on these differences?

17. Pg. 3 Lines 64−65: Different types of internal focus are not meant to be the same, but may share similar aspects. Consider replacing “equal” with “equivalent”, or its synonym, to reflect this conceptual difference.

18. Pg. 3 Line 68: Use the past tense of “lead” and add “with” after “line”.

19. Pg. 4 Lines 84−85: The conditions per se could not produce the performance, but it is the use of these conditions that could lead to differences in participants’ performance.

20. Pg. 4 Line 86: Consider adding “conditions” after “IFOA”.

21. Pg. 7 Lines 140 and 147−148, and Pg. 9 Lines 180−181: The conditions per se could not make the jump, but the jumps were made by participants under these conditions.

22. Pg. 7 Line 142: Standardize the number of decimal places used to report p values.

23. Pg. 8 Line 166: The use of “argue” is usually associated with the presentation of two opposing views.

24. Pg. 9 Line 175: “led”

25. Pg. 10 Line 205: Add “to” after “due”.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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PLoS One. 2023 Nov 13;18(11):e0294246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294246.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0

31 Jul 2023

We would like to thank the reviewers for there comments. We have attached a word document that includes our responses to each of the reviewers comments.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file. (290.4KB, docx)

Decision Letter 1

Monika Błaszczyszyn

22 Aug 2023

PONE-D-23-04667R1The location of an internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performancePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Strick,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 06 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Monika Błaszczyszyn

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Comments to the authors’ revisions

The revised manuscript has been immensely improved. I agree with most changes. However, there was a slight misunderstanding in response to my comments (Point 6); some of the comments were responded to but without any revisions on the manuscript (point 3, 6, 7, and 8); and one response was unclear (point 5). Most importantly, I cannot agree with the responses to Comments 7, 14, and 15 from the revision (point 2 and 10). Thus, I recommend minor revisions by either clarifying these points and/or providing scientific and rational justifications that go against the current guidelines of science.

(1) Responses to Comment 1 – 6: N/A (resolved)

(2) Response to Comment 7: Just because the previous literature used the same sample size can raise tremendous counterarguments, especially from those who are familiar with methodology/statistics. The lack of justification can lead to statistically unethical procedures, e.g., (a) collecting data until the investigator found significance; (b) stopping data collection when significance was found without justification; (c) simply unreliable results. That is, even if p = 0.05, if the power is low, the conclusion cannot be confidently made about the rejection of the null hypothesis; and (d) none-informative studies, i.e., a small effect size that may not have practical meaningfulness. For example, Porter et al. (2010) collected N = 120, which is one of the largest samples ever collected in the motor learning area. The effect size returned negligible (i.e., d). Other studies collected much less sample size (partially due to the study design), but none of the cited articles in the manuscript (Becker & Smith, 2015; Cocker, 2016, 2018; Ducharme et al., 2016; Hubert & Williams, 2017; King & Porter, 2021; Mirmiran et al., 2019; Nagano et al., 2020; Porter et al., 2010, 2012, 2013, Westphal & Porter, 2012) provided a written justification or reported a priori power analysis. Unfortunately, the research in motor learning is clearly biased and difficult to replicate (McKay et al., 2022a) because of some of the reasons mentioned above. These poor statistical ethics has led to conclusions that many previous research topics in motor learning/control (i.e., autonomy, expectancy, reduced feedback) are highly biased and their effects are negligible (McKay et al., 2022b, 2023), including external/internal focus (Mckay et al., under review).

Given that, just that statement (using the sample size from previous literature with no (report of) prior power analysis) can lead to rejection nowadays. Therefore, for your defense, I strongly encourage the authors to add a limitation that the authors failed to perform a power analysis that can potentially lead to a lack of statistical rigor, and future studies should ensure analysis with high statistical power.

Reference

McKay et al. (under review): https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/304

McKay et al. (2022a): https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jmld/11/1/article-p15.xml

McKay et al. (2022b): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1469029222000334

McKay et al. (2023): https://psyarxiv.com/3nhtc/

(3) Response to Comment 8: I was looking for the authors’ response, “Only males were included in the sample to eliminate sex based jumping difference.” I believe this is a sufficient reason to justify the choice of the particular sex. As sex difference and sex inclusion are extremely valued in the current scientific field, please add that response to the manuscript for your defense.

(4) Response to Comment 9: Resolved.

(5) Response to Comment 10: The response does not make sense. If it was truly randomized of 5 potential orders, that’s 120 possible orders? How was the order effect tested? If it was counterbalanced, the order effect could be tested. However, the authors mentioned that ‘no order effects were observed,’ and the term was changed from counterbalanced to randomized. If it was truly randomized, there was no way to test or observe the order effect as it has too many variations, so we just need to hope there would be no bias based on the probability theory. Please explain this in detail.

(6) Response to Comment 11: Type I error is inflation of p-values due to multiple comparisons. I see that the authors performed post hoc tests, not a priori contrasts. (a) How was the inflation of error controlled for the multiple comparisons? (b) Are the p-values of the post hoc tests raw values or values after controlling for the type I error with some methods (e.g., Bonferroni)?

(7) Response to Comment 12(2): Resolved. I meant to ask the authors to add a sentence or the statistical assumption (visual inspection or tests for normality, homogeneity…etc.). The authors have added them in the revised manuscript.

(8) Responses to Comment 12(1,3,4): About outliers. Thank you for the clarification. Please add your responses to the analysis section (i.e., how many outliers and missing data were there; how outliers were treated and the rationale for removing or not removing outliers). As this information affects the future synthesis (if you do not describe missing or outliers, and there was a difference in the degrees of freedom, readers would not be able to tell if it is a typo or due to some data processing), it’s important that the authors add them to the manuscript.

(9) Response to Comment 13: Resolved.

(10) Response to Comments 14 & 15: In response to my recommendations to (a) present M, SD, and (b)replace bar graphs with other forms of figure, the authors responded (a) that would be redundant to figures and (b) bar graphs are consistent with previous literature, and other forms of figures are not more informative than the bar graph.

I cannot agree with both comments. First, the scientific literature should contribute to the development of science. This includes contributions to the future synthesis of knowledge (i.e., meta-analysis) and keeping up with the most recent guidelines based on accumulated knowledge from various areas of science.

For (a), without M, df, and SD (and ideally 95% CI or SE), the literature cannot be used for meta-analysis. This does not only lead to stagnant of scientific development but is also disadvantageous for the authors for not being included in the future synthesis of knowledge. Thus, figures and the actual numbers are not redundant. I see that the authors added M and SE. However, it would be more researcher-friendly if you could add M, SD, and 95% CI to the result section, especially as the authors used SPSS in the analysis. Moreover, the authors added M and SE selectively (I assume only for significant findings). This tradition has been harshly criticized as it produces bias. Thus, either adding all results in the text or simply adding a table would be a better option.

For (b), I clearly see the benefits of the authors’ alternative plots. First, readers can see the spread of the data. Second, readers can see the distribution of the data. Thus, readers can assess whether the results are reliable (i.e., statistical assumptions are met). Third, readers can also see outliers. The debate about how to deal with outliers has not been resolved, and that is why it is important to show and describe the rationale for removing or not removing outliers. Fourth, yes, the alternative graphs may be more visually difficult to see differences; however, the bar graph can lead to exaggerated interpretation as the y-axis range is only 70 – 84 on the left column figures. I applaud the authors for adding asterisks to indicate the source of statistical significance.

There has been a strong shift of moving away from “bad” scientific traditions (not because the past researchers were bad but because there have been improvements), and one of them is the use of bar graphs. Therefore, I respect the authors for trying to be consistent (which is great, and others don’t do that!), but maintaining bad traditions is a different topic. There are numerous criticisms you could find, but for reference, please see Weissgerber et al. (2019).

I do not have a strong position on statistical tests for testing statistical assumptions. There is also a strong shift in statistical consensus that statistical assumptions should be visually inspected. However, there are counterarguments for this. Thus, I do not agree or disagree with the authors’ comment about Mauchly’s test. Regardless, although I applaud the authors for trying different types of figures, I cannot agree with going against scientific development, and any figures on the right column are more informative than the left column figures.

Weissgerber, T. L., Winham, S. J., Heinzen, E. P., Milin-Lazovic, J. S., Garcia-Valencia, O., Bukumiric, Z., Savic, M. D., Garovic, V. D., & Milic, N. M. (2019). Reveal, Don't Conceal: Transforming Data Visualization to Improve Transparency. Circulation, 140(18), 1506–1518.

Reviewer #3: Major Comments – Methods

1. Pg. 8 Lines 173−174: Was a measuring tape used to obtain the exact jump distance from the distal edge of the start line (with respect to the starting position), or the value of the measurement line on the rubber mat that is closest to “the heel of the foot nearest to the start line” used to represent the estimated jump distance?

2. Pg. 8 Lines 178−179: With this correction of the reported order-effect minimization method from counterbalancing to randomization, there is now a methodological concern that amongst the 29 participants, a majority of them might have performed the SLJ with one particular condition as the first of five or the last of five (so that differential effects of warmup, practice, fatigue, etc., might have influenced performance). For each of the five conditions, state the proportion of participants for which it was the first condition as well as that for which it was the fifth (last) condition.

3. Pg. 9 Line 199: It is unclear whether the exception refers to participants not receiving any verbal instructions before each of the two jumps in the control condition, or another unspecified provision to meet condition requirements.

4. Pg. 10 Line 217: The p-value for the Shapiro hip dataset

Major Comments – Results

5. Pg. 10 Line 217: The p-value obtained in the Shapiro-Wilk test result for your hip dataset should be 0.048.

6. Pg. 10 Line 225: Consider reporting the values of standard deviation (SD) alongside these means because SD describes the sample whereas standard error (SD) is not a descriptive statistic.

Major Comments – Discussion

7. The generalizability limitation of this study should be added to the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PLoS One. 2023 Nov 13;18(11):e0294246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294246.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1

11 Oct 2023

We appreciate the thoughtful comments from the reviewers as they have helped us refine our manuscript for publication. We have made adjustments to the manuscript in this second round of revisions. We have included more detailed responses to each comment made by the reviewers in our Response to Reviewers document.

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Decision Letter 2

Monika Błaszczyszyn

30 Oct 2023

The location of an internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performance

PONE-D-23-04667R2

Dear Dr. Strick,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #3: No

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Acceptance letter

Monika Błaszczyszyn

3 Nov 2023

PONE-D-23-04667R2

The location of an internal focus of attention differentially affects motor performance

Dear Dr. Strick:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

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