Self-efficacy has consistently distinguished between highly successful and less successful athletes. Given this relationship there is demand in sport to have strategies to enhance self-efficacy. The use of motivational general-mastery (MG-M) imagery is an effective psychological technique to enhance self-efficacy. What moderates the effectiveness of this technique is the athlete’s ability to use MG-M imagery. A single-subject multiple baseline design was employed where inter-collegiate golfers (n = 3; male) completed baseline and post-intervention measures: Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport and the Golf Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Participants completed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory prior to each competition and the score recorded for each round of golf was used to evaluate performance. Participants engaged in six sessions of guided MG-M imagery training over a 3-week period. The results of the study demonstrated that the sport confidence and golf self-efficacy of Participants 2 and 3 improved, while Participant 1 remained at a relatively constant level. All participants showed improved imagery ability and Participants 1 and 3 demonstrated improved golf performance. Post-experimental interviews indicated all participants felt the imagery training program was effective and appropriate for their sport.

The effects of a computer program (Health Imagery Technology Systems, HITS) designed to promote attitude and cognitive changes through elicitation of evoked response potentials were evaluated with chronic pain patients. A treatment and control group were used for comparison (52 patients, 22 females, 32 males, mean ages 47). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised subtests, a Semantic Differential scale, the Health Attribution Test, an imagery protocol, the McCoy-Lawlis Pain Drawing, and the Zung Depression scale were used at admission and discharge to measure change. A pre- post-mood thermometer was used with the treatment group. The hypotheses that the treatment group would show significant changes on these measures were tested with a two group repeated measures analysis of variance design. No significant changes were noted for either group on the intellectual measures, on health attitudes, or reports of pain. The similarities subscale showed significant within group variance (F = 5.46, p < .023). One bipolar adjective pair indicated significant differences (F = 4.79, p < .035), possibly a result of chance. One of seven imagery measures suggested a significant improvement in strength of imagery for the treatment group (F = 18.2, p < .00008). Both groups showed significantly improved imagery of body defenses (F = 4.58, £ < .037) and significantly reduced depression scores (F = 15.93, p < .000021). A mood thermometer was measured for the treatment group alone and five situational mood changes were significant in predicted directions. Post hoc discriminant analysis showed significant differences only on one adjective pair (F = 9.75, p < .0029). No combination of variables added to the prediction of group membership. Overall, the effects of the HITS program did not seem strong enough to indicate its value as a treatment modality in chronic pain populations beyond current treatment. It did indicate some significant situational mood effects in positive directions.

Remote sensing techniques are important for detecting disease within the turfgrass canopy. Herein, we look at two such techniques to assess their viability in detecting and isolating turfgrass diseases. First, thermal imagery is used to detect differences in canopy temperature associated with the onset of brown patch infection in tall fescue. Sixty-four newly seeded stands of tall fescue were arranged in a randomized block design with two runs with eight blocks each containing four inoculum concentrations within a greenhouse. Daily measurements were taken of the canopy and ambient temperature with a thermal camera. After five consecutive days differences were detected in canopy – ambient temperature in both runs (p=0.0015), which continued for the remainder of the experiment. Moreover, analysis of true colour imagery during this time yielded no significant differences between groups. A field study comparing canopy temperature of adjacent symptomatic and asymptomatic tall fescue and creeping bentgrass canopies showed differences as well (p<0.0492). The second project attempted to isolate spring dead spot from aerial imagery of bermudagrass golf course fairways using a Python script. Aerial images from unmanned aerial vehicle flights were collected from four fairways at Nicklaus Course of Bay Creek Resort in Cape Charles, VA. Accuracy of the code was measured by creating buffer zones around code generated points and measuring how many disease centers measured by hand were eclipsed. Accuracies measured as high as 97% while reducing coverage of the fairway by over 30% compared to broadcast applications. Point density maps of the hand and code points also appeared similar. These data provide evidence for new opportunities in remote turfgrass disease detection. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Turfgrasses are ubiquitous, from home lawns to sports fields, where they are used for their durability and aesthetics. Disease within the turfgrass canopy can ruin these aspects of the turfgrass reducing its overall quality. This makes detection and management of disease within the canopy an important part of maintaining turfgrass. Here we look at the effectiveness of imaging techniques in detecting and isolating disease within cool-season and warm-season turfgrasses. We test the capacity for thermal imagery to detect the infection of tall fescue (Festuca arundenacea) with Rhizoctonia solani, the causal agent of brown patch. In greenhouse experiments, differences were detected in normalized canopy temperature between differing inoculation levels at five days post inoculation, and in field conditions we were able to observe differences in canopy temperature between adjacent symptomatic and non-symptomatic stands. We also developed a Python script to automatically identify and record the location of spring dead spot damage within mosaicked images of bermudagrass golf fairways captured via unmanned aerial vehicle. The developed script primarily used Hough transform to mark the circular patches within the fairway and recorded the GPS coordinates of each disease center. When compared to disease incidence maps created manually the script was able to achieve accuracies as high as 97% while reducing coverage of the fairway by over 30% compared to broadcast applications. Point density maps created from points in the code appeared to match those created manually. Both findings have the potential to be used as tools to help turfgrass managers.

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Psychological factors have important implications for adjustment to chronic pain, which itself has a variety of emotional consequences. Mental imagery has historically been assumed to be closely connected to emotional responses, and some experimental and clinical evidence has supported this claim. Around two in five people with chronic pain spontaneously report having mind‟s-eye mental images of their pain, although this phenomenon has received only limited research attention. This study aimed to see whether, for people with chronic pain who report these images, evoking their pain images is different from describing their pain using only single descriptive words. It was hypothesised that evoking the images would result in a stronger negative emotional response, weaker positive emotional response and an increase in the perceived pain intensity. It was also hypothesised that, compared to baseline scores, emotional and pain intensity ratings would be higher under both experimental conditions. Thirty-six participants completed an experiment interview, which employed a repeated measures design. The dependent variables were visual analogue scale ratings of pain intensity and strength of emotional experience (fear, sadness, anger, disgust and happiness). Other measures completed assessed the nature of the imagery and level of overall psychological distress. The study found that evoking pain-related mental images resulted in a temporary increase in pain intensity, sadness, anger and disgust and a decrease in happiness. However, these emotional responses were no different from those experienced when participants described their pain in single words, although this verbal task did not result in the increase in pain intensity seen when images were evoked. These results suggest that for this group of people, pain imagery is no more closely connected to emotional responses than equivalent verbal representations. However, the fact that imagery evocation resulted in a temporary increase in pain intensity where the verbal condition did not perhaps suggests that this represents a qualitatively different kind of paying attention to pain. The next steps for this small but growing field of research are considered.

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