ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the research literature on self-talk and self-paced motor tasks. In the 1970s, researchers began scientifically exploring the relationship between self-talk and motor performance. The sport-specific model of self-talk was developed to address some of the shortcomings in the self-talk literature. The definition of self-talk posited by the sport-specific model of self-talk is designed to clarify what self-talk is and to distinguish self-talk from similar phenomena such as thoughts, images, facial expressions, and gestures. The sport-specific model of self-talk consists of several components that can help provide a framework for understanding and directing motor performance and motor learning self-talk research. Motor learning is “a set of processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent gains in the capacity for skilled performance”. The sport-specific model of self-talk proposes that the context should be considered when examining the relationship between self-talk and performance.
