Influence of attentional focus on skilled motor performance: Performance decrement under unfamiliar focus conditions

Recent studies have demonstrated that the direction of attentional focus exerts a substantial influence on motor performance. We argue that in well-learned skills, this variable might be confounded with athletes’ familiarity with focus conditions. We studied the effect of familiarity and the direction of attentional focus on performance in two experiments using 2 (familiarity) × 2 (direction) within-subject designs. A significant main effect of familiarity—that is, better performance under familiar compared with unfamiliar focus conditions—confirmed the influence of familiarity on motor performance. Results are consistent with existing concepts, but lead to different consequences when applied to sport and exercise.