Aristotle’s Concept of Mental Imagery in Sports

Abstract

Throughout the past decade, there has been an accelerated expansion of heightening consciousness in athletic performance’s mental facets, which is reflected in the aggrandizement of research concern in cognitive sports psychology. Research on mental imagery has been considerably influenced by cognitive concepts whereby Aristotle, the Stageirite philosopher, delivers the primary systematic account of the significant role of mental imagery in cognition. In Aristotelian psychological theory, mental images perform much the same function that the rather broader concept of mental portrayal plays in contemporary cognitive science. With the assumption that cognition refers to any mental activity associated with acquiring, storing or using knowledge (including competent behaviour), the present paper, endeavors to forge an alliance between Aristotle’s notion of mental imagery, which draws attentions to some form of fundamental mental portrayal of athletic Knowledge, along with the contemporary notion of mental imagery in sports performers.