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How does motor imagery speed affect motor performance times? Evaluating the effects of task specificity
Author(s) -
Debarnot Ursula,
Louis Magali,
Collet Christian,
Guillot Aymeric
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1718
Subject(s) - motor imagery , task (project management) , psychology , motor learning , affect (linguistics) , physical medicine and rehabilitation , motor skill , cognitive psychology , communication , neuroscience , electroencephalography , brain–computer interface , medicine , engineering , systems engineering
Summary The present experiment investigated whether motor imagery (MI) performed at a faster speed might influence the actual motor performance duration by comparing real‐time vs . fast MI of different finger movement sequences. Forty‐eight participants were either asked to do real‐time or fast MI practice of simple 8‐digit (unimanual), complex 8‐digit (bimanual), and long (16‐digit) finger movement sequences. The main findings revealed that both fast and real‐time MI resulted in actual speed gains in all experimental conditions, hence suggesting that performing fast MI did not systematically provide additional benefits as compared to real‐time MI. Interestingly, the results suggested that the speed at which movements were performed following an increase in MI speed was selectively influenced by the complexity of the task. MI training at higher speed seemed to be more effective in changing complex motor sequences compared with real‐time MI. Practical implications in motor learning and rehabilitation are also discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.