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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...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5152910 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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