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Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking

Counterfactual thinking (reflecting on “what might have been”) has been shown to enhance future performance by translating information about past mistakes into plans for future action. Prefactual thinking (imagining “what might be if…”) may serve a greater preparative function than counterfactual th...

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Autores principales: Hammell, Cecilia, Chan, Amy Y. C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5152910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27942041
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168181
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author Hammell, Cecilia
Chan, Amy Y. C.
author_facet Hammell, Cecilia
Chan, Amy Y. C.
author_sort Hammell, Cecilia
collection PubMed
description Counterfactual thinking (reflecting on “what might have been”) has been shown to enhance future performance by translating information about past mistakes into plans for future action. Prefactual thinking (imagining “what might be if…”) may serve a greater preparative function than counterfactual thinking as it is future-orientated and focuses on more controllable features, thus providing a practical script to prime future behaviour. However, whether or not this difference in hypothetical thought content may translate into a difference in actual task performance has been largely unexamined. In Experiment 1 (n = 42), participants performed trials of a computer-simulated physical task, in between which they engaged in either task-related hypothetical thinking (counterfactual or prefactual) or an unrelated filler task (control). As hypothesised, prefactuals contained more controllable features than counterfactuals. Moreover, participants who engaged in either form of hypothetical thinking improved significantly in task performance over trials compared to participants in the control group. The difference in thought content between counterfactuals and prefactuals, however, did not yield a significant difference in performance improvement. Experiment 2 (n = 42) replicated these findings in a dynamic balance task environment. Together, these findings provide further evidence for the preparatory function of counterfactuals, and demonstrate that prefactuals share this same functional characteristic.
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spelling pubmed-51529102016-12-28 Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking Hammell, Cecilia Chan, Amy Y. C. PLoS One Research Article Counterfactual thinking (reflecting on “what might have been”) has been shown to enhance future performance by translating information about past mistakes into plans for future action. Prefactual thinking (imagining “what might be if…”) may serve a greater preparative function than counterfactual thinking as it is future-orientated and focuses on more controllable features, thus providing a practical script to prime future behaviour. However, whether or not this difference in hypothetical thought content may translate into a difference in actual task performance has been largely unexamined. In Experiment 1 (n = 42), participants performed trials of a computer-simulated physical task, in between which they engaged in either task-related hypothetical thinking (counterfactual or prefactual) or an unrelated filler task (control). As hypothesised, prefactuals contained more controllable features than counterfactuals. Moreover, participants who engaged in either form of hypothetical thinking improved significantly in task performance over trials compared to participants in the control group. The difference in thought content between counterfactuals and prefactuals, however, did not yield a significant difference in performance improvement. Experiment 2 (n = 42) replicated these findings in a dynamic balance task environment. Together, these findings provide further evidence for the preparatory function of counterfactuals, and demonstrate that prefactuals share this same functional characteristic. Public Library of Science 2016-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5152910/ /pubmed/27942041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168181 Text en © 2016 Hammell, Chan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hammell, Cecilia
Chan, Amy Y. C.
Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title_full Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title_fullStr Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title_full_unstemmed Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title_short Improving Physical Task Performance with Counterfactual and Prefactual Thinking
title_sort improving physical task performance with counterfactual and prefactual thinking
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5152910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27942041
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168181
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