Effects of verbal and visual cues on performance of a complex ballistic task

An ecological approach to the study of feedback for learning sport tasks involves understanding how both augmented and inherent feedback interact. Literature on sport psychology suggests that athletes differ from nonathletes in characteristics that relate to learning styles and use of feedback. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in learning style between college female athletes and non-athletes on a complex ballistic task (dart throwing) differentiated by verbal and visual cues. 19 college women athletes and 19 nonathletes participated under four different conditions: visual cued/verbal cued, visual cued/verbal noncued, visual noncued/verbal cued, visual noncued/verbal noncued. Analysis of variance indicated that athletes were superior to nonathletes under the visual cued/verbal noncued condition. Both groups showed a linear trend for improvement but athletes were significantly better on the last trial.